


The Summer Side

by Adox



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Child Abuse, F/M, I mean of course, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Poetic Language, Supernatural Elements, every word is important pay attention, gatsby references, gng week, mentioned roman/neo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-29 17:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13931835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adox/pseuds/Adox
Summary: To Do1. call Ruby every night2. Figure out about the “ghost”3. Why is Raven here?4. Get better at writing w/ left hand5. Mercury BlackxxxNobody talked about the house on Fox Street. Nobody but Mercury.





	1. The Fifth Bullet

**Author's Note:**

> Ok this is gonna be one hell of a ride. Instead of being a normal person and following the GnG week prompts, i decided to fucking write an almost 30k fic in a month. At this moment, I still have 2 chapters left to write, so you'll be getting an update every day until I run out of chapters. I'm just going to get into this now so.... Yeah enjoy my biggest challenge yet: making a plot! Enjoy me trying to make everything symbolic! Enjoy angst! Enjoy the Summer Side!

**I**

_The Fifth Bullet_

 

The light in the car flickered as they drove underneath patches of trees, the shadows slowly wafting across the faux-leather seats as if pushed by a current. The vehicle looked out of place, really; red sand smeared by windshield wipers and battered Arizona license plate contrasting with the suburban wilderness of New England. Yang wasn’t sure why they didn’t just travel by plane— but then again, she wasn't sure why her dad did anything anymore.

 

He claimed it’d be a “breath of fresh air” for her, or something. That one summer away from the dry heat and the roads that stole her arm would just _fix_ her. She didn’t need to sit around a small town in some creepy house and think. She didn’t want to think.

The drive had taken a few days, and Yang wasn’t sure if her dad had stopped talking _once._ She never tuned in to what he said, anyways. She just glared at his moving lips as the world blurred around her. There wasn’t any need to listen, as she already knew exactly what he droned on about: “This’ll be good for you, Yang,” and “you’ll thank me when this is over.”

 

_As if._

 

Eventually, she decided to respond to his insistances, as they neared the last legs of the drive; by the time that her knees had grown numb, flattened against the back of the seat in front of her in an attempt at leisure. Luggage took up shotgun, she was scared to sit there again, and the carefully stacked bags collapsed as they hit a bump in the road. Either the rotting corpse of a possum, or a badly broken-in cardboard box. Yang jolted in her seat, remaining arm clinging to the seam between the seats.  

 

Her father, Tai, sighed, and (probably) repeated: “This’ll be good for you, Yang,” and she couldn’t help but shoot something back.

 

“Yeah— let’s just leave my friends and live in some old monstrosity for the summer. What a wonderfully thought out solution, _dad_.”

 

Tai sighed, again, but didn’t push any further. Yang was stubborn. For her, actions spoke louder than words and, well she wasn’t very impressed with the ones he had taken.

 

She stared out the window some more, marveling in how different everything was from home. She’d been here before, to visit her Uncle, but only looked at it through the eyes of a charmed stranger— seeing it as a weekend adventure. Now, she saw it as a death sentence.

 

The town, Mistral, housed itself on the coast of Massachusetts. It had a few neighborhoods, a couple of small schools and one family-run supermarket. The appeal, according to her father, lay in the city of Boston being only a 20 minute bus ride away.

 

“All the charm of a small town without the boredom of isolation,” he’d say every time they’d visit. See, her Uncle lived there, working as the only competent police officer in the town— good enough at his job that he’d work extra consulting gigs in the city every once in awhile. He had a cynical worldview and a tiny alcohol problem, but Yang always found herself hyped to see him over Christmas visits, nonetheless.

To be honest, she might’ve been less closed off to this whole thing if her dad had masked it to be like one of those breaks. Her suffering, hidden under a guise of a fun, family trip. Maybe she’d be more okay with this if her sister had tagged along. Ruby could make anything better— she always knew how to comfort and make the best out of awful situations. She had volunteered to join, too, wanting to see her favorite Uncle Qrow and explore the woods with her sister.

 

“They don’t have woods here,” she’d say, “not real one’s, like in Mistral, anyways.”

 

Her father and Uncle agreed to _not_ crowd the Branwen household for 3 months (seeing as it was slightly smaller than a two-person apartment,) and instead decided to rent out a “nice” house for the cheap price of keeping it in shape before its appraisal later in the fall. Ruby ended up going on their planned trip with Weiss and Blake, while Yang was forced to stay behind. Sure, she’d be staying in Mistral for the final month, but that meant two months alone with her father, doing nothing. Maybe that’s why she was angry at this whole thing.

 

She was angry about a lot of things.

 

The car drove past that one aforementioned supermarket, where a bored looking college-aged girl lazily organized apples into a nice color gradient. An old woman pushed a cart slowly— as if she weren’t pushing it at all, and smiled as she observed bouquets of flowers that no one would ever buy her until she was six feet underground.

 

This would be Yang’s summer.

 

Slumping down in her seat, Yang fingered the stylistic rips in her jacket, only stopping when she reached the void area past her upper right arm. It still felt raw, and foreign. Even though she never stopped thinking about it, sometimes she’d forget it was gone. Her thoughts stopped when the car did, haphazardly rolling onto the cobblestone driveway.

 

Yang was used to a cold Mistral— seeing as her prior experiences all consisted of poorly constructed snowmen and fireside lounge-sessions. However, as she opened the car door (albeit awkwardly with her nondominant hand,) a wave of unexpected heat slapped her in the face. Things that are unexpected tend to have the most effects, in Yang’s opinion.

 

A salty wind tickled her skin and ruffled her golden hair teasingly, prompting a shiver. The sun and sea provided for a strange contrast in climate, and Yang hated it. She stepped out onto the driveway shakily, making a point of turning around completely for full mobility in slamming the car’s door behind her. Her father, previously occupied with his stroll towards the front steps, luggage in hand, turned towards his daughter with a scowl.

 

“You can at least _pretend_ to be happy about all this,” he muttered, fingers grasping the door’s handle forcefully. “Judging by the extra car in the driveway, your Uncle is already here. He can probably give us a real tour of the neighborhood.”

 

She didn’t notice it before, but her Uncle’s mark was left all over the driveway; the broken down police car parked halfway off into the grass gave Yang that heartwarming feeling you get when you see somebody after a very long time. Well, until she remembered she was angry at him and her father.

 

Her dad entered the house and left Yang to loiter sullenly outside. She took this time to actually look at her new “home-away-from-home,” not surprised that it looked just like the set of a B-rated horror movie. Gothing framework supported by maroon and mulberry, decorated with vines of iron that spiraled along the trim, and creeped around hollow windows.

 

“Jesus, this looks like someone died here,” she groaned, attempting to sling her backpack over her shoulder.

“That’s because someone did— well, some _ones_ really.”

 

She whipped her head around towards the unexpected voice, fist curled tightly in panic. Its owner was a stranger, who leaned casually against the car, skateboard by his feet.

 

“Man,” he said, bewildered, “you lucked out, getting the haunted house.”

 

He flashed Yang a smirk, lazily running a hand through a shitty silver dye job, choppy bangs hanging loosely over the left side of his face. She would’ve stared further, since he was admittedly attractive, but decided instead to throw her own retort at his face.

 

“You believe in ghosts. What’re you, twelve?”

 

“On a scale from one to ten?” He didn’t miss a beat, and that smirk crawled back onto his face. “What I _do_ believe, Blondie, is nobody making it more than a year in that place without moving out… _In a body bag!”_ She’d deny flinching, but that’s what happened.

 

“Good thing I’m only here for the summer, then,” she said, lips stretched tightly against her teeth to the point where the scarlet dissipated into a pale yellow. She wasn’t gonna take this kid’s shit.

 

He just shrugged in response, tapping the car with his hands absentmindedly. “Guess you’ll see me quite a bit then, there’s nothing much to do here but observe the supernatural.” He pantomimed a spooky finger gesture before laughing and holding out his hand. “I’m Mercury. Black.”

 

Instead of accepting the outstretched palm, Yang scoffed. “Is the body bag offer still on the table?”

 

He didn’t seem offended, throwing his head back in laughter before dropping his board back onto the asphalt carelessly. “You’re a fun one, blondie,” he gives her a mock salute and starts for wherever he was going. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

 

The stranger, Mercury, took off zooming over cracks in the sidewalk with a fast paced rhythm. Yang pursed her lips and cupped one hand around her mouth, shouting as loud as she could: “My name is _Yang!_ Not ‘Blondie’!”

 

He didn’t look back, but held up a thumb in casual affirmation behind him.

 

For some reason, shouting a simple sentence had tired Yang out considerably. She let out ragged breaths and took in gallons of air in return. The thing is, she _had_ stamina. It wasn’t physical exhaustion— like she’d just run a marathon, or something. It felt more like everything from the last few weeks had just caught up with her and shoved itself down her throat. She didn’t know why it was this boy, this _Mercury_ that sparked that fuse.

 

She walked up to the front door defiantly, ready to ignore the awful feeling and continue glaring at her father. A practical solution.

 

When the door ended up creaking open on rusty hinges, that whole “haunted” idea seemed a bit more accurate than she’d initially observed. The foyer wasn’t much better; barely lit outside of a pseudo candle light lamp hanging from the ceiling that emitted a strange orange hue in overlapping and unorganized geometric patterns. Three pairs of shoes lay neatly underneath the coat-rack. _Wait… Three?_

 

Last time she checked, her dad and Uncle made up only _two_ people (she hadn’t run out of fingers just yet). She curiously walked into and through the sitting room; empty, save for the suitcases her dad had dragged in earlier and a couple of flowerless vases scattered on various coffee tables and the fireplace. She heard chatter from what she assumed was the kitchen, based on the smell of wine and adult conversations resonating within the dusty air. Yang faltered when she walked in and saw Raven Branwen at the counter.

 

Yang’s relationship with Raven wasn’t really defined. Her father didn’t talk about their “divorce” much— Qrow described it as “best left in the past” every time she asked. Raven came on Christmases, only for the dinner since she worked as a lawyer in the city with outrageous hours. The only difference between her relationship with Raven and that of other nieces and aunts had to do with the fact that Raven gave birth to her, and neither of them really wanted to bring that up.

 

“Oh— Raven,” she let out, calling the attention of the three adults, who were chatting on old times over a rainbow of cheeses. “I didn’t think you’d… come.”

 

Her voice died out a bit at the end, trying not to express how low her expectations actually were when it came to her biological mother. She pretended not to notice the look of hurt that flashed across the woman’s face, and opted to take a cracker instead.

 

She didn’t blame Raven for being caught up in the office when she’d been hospitalized— since sometimes things didn’t really work out well in those situations. The woman was usually cold and distant, so the bar wasn’t high.

 

Qrow noticed the tension and tried to alleviate it with a hasty explanation. “We wanted to help you two settle in. This house can be a bit freaky at first.”

 

Raven just gave her brother this _look_ and turned to Yang. “I have work here, with Qrow, so I’m staying for a few weeks. It seemed only natural that I’d visit with my… family while I was here.”

 

Yang admired that about Raven, even though it caused more trouble than it was worth. She spoke honestly, and never excused her demeanor with fluffy words or dark histories. Yang said what she thought, sure, but it always ended up being on the coattails of impulse— rather than a calculated bluntness. Yang sat on one of the barstools, next to her father (whilst ignoring his presence.)

 

“What sort of work?”

 

Raven sighed, and looked to Qrow like he was her own personal word bank. “Just some… legal files that need sorting. The station is a mess, no thanks to my brother, and I needed some info for a case I’ve been building.”

 

Tai narrowed his eyes at his fellow parental figures, but Yang ignored it. She knew that they were being cage-y about their work, and decided that instead of pursuing answers directly, she’d put it on her list of things to figure out over the next three months. She didn’t have much on that list, but it provided enough distraction from the actual point of this getaway that she didn’t care.  

 

A loud knock broke the silence building up between the group. It apparently broke other things too, as the house rattled along with the persistent noise, and the lights flickered in discontent. Her father moved to answer, but Raven beat him to it, already halfway out of the room. “No need, Tai.”

 

He sat back down with this childish pout and Yang rooted for her mother’s savage until the lights stopped flickering. “Is this house really haunted?” she asked, looking to her Uncle, who cocked an eyebrow.

 

“You’re quick to judge a book by it’s shitty electrical system.” He took a sip of whiskey from his wine glass.

 

Yang rolled her eyes with a smirk. “Yeah— and its buttresses. _And_ its paint job.” She grabbed another cracker. “Did someone actually die here?”

 

Qrow did a double-take, almost coughing up his whiskey mid-swallow. Tai looked concerned, “where’d you hear _that_?”

 

“It’s none of _your_ business.”

 

Qrow chuckled at Yang’s response to her father, before repeating the question. “Where’d you hear that, firecracker?”

 

“Some random kid.” She didn’t mention his name, or how she couldn’t get him out of her head. However, a dark look passing over Qrow’s face proved that she didn’t really need to.

 

“Of course he did.” It looked like he was about to say something else, words hanging desperately to his lips like they were gripping the edge of a cliff, pulling themselves back onto solid ground as Raven entered the room with the woman who was at the door.

 

The woman stood tall out of necessity, back flattened out by pristine, ironed clothes. The frame on which her flesh hung jutted out as she moved: cheekbones, hips, knees, elbows. Her ankles looked just about ready to collapse into her abhorrently high heels, and her fingers imitated spiders as they impatiently fluttered across a document ridden clipboard. Yang thought that maybe this woman was the ghost Mercury mentioned.

 

The woman paused as she walked through the doorway, golden eyes raking over Yang’s right arm (or where it should’ve been). Yang rotated her body away uncomfortably, so only her left side was visible, and the woman looked away, gaze gravitating to her clipboard as if she didn’t know its contents already. She held a bony hand out to Tai, saccharine voice weaving through the hazy air in snakey spirals as she introduced herself.

 

“Cinder Fall; I’m in charge of seeing the transaction through. Namely making sure you understand the… conditions of the rental agreement.” She tapped the clipboard pointedly. “Your situation is quite unique, so things need to be made more… clear before you get all settled in.”

 

Tai nodded, placing his glass on the counter and stroking his chin in poorly masked annoyance. He pushed his stool as far as he could underneath the bar before turning to the woman, Cinder, politely. “How about we just take this to the sitting room? My daughter probably wants to pick her room and get adjusted.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Raven rolled her eyes at the formalities as the two left the room before turning to her brother. “I fucking hate her.”

 

“Who?” Yang asked, already knowing the answer, but hoping for an elaboration— unaware of her mother’s relationship with the mysterious Cinder Fall.

 

“Raven’s just pissed that she lost a case against her,” Qrow explained with a scoff. “She’s been trying to get the bitch arrested for years.”

 

“What for? What was the case even about?”

 

Raven partook in a slice of blue cheese sandwiched in between two triangular crackers. “Only the people that died in this house. Her house.”

 

Yang wasn’t sure whether to be excited or scared about this newfound information, scooting to the edge of her seat in anticipation. “So he was right? The guy from before. Mercury.”

 

A sort of recognition flashed over Raven’s face, and she looked to her brother skeptically. “Mercury? _Really._ ”

 

“The kid’s a menace, of course he’d mess with her.”

 

“He didn’t seem _that_ bad,” Yang protested, not really sure why she was defending a guy she barely knew.

 

“Oh he is,” Raven insisted, downing the remainder of her wine. Like brother, like sister, she guessed. “You’ll see.”

 

“I guess I will then,” Yang concluded, a rebellious twang in her voice; almost daring her Uncle to question her. “But you never told me about the deaths. Is the house actually haunted?” She added the spooky fingers for dramatic effect.

 

Qrow sighed and finally moved to sit down, as he’d gotten tired of suavely leaning over the counter the whole time. “People died, but there’s no ghost, Yang.”

 

“Yeah,” Raven added quickly, no humor in her retort. “People use myths and monsters to cover up how it’s really all themselves.”

 

“Well… What happened then?”

 

“A lot of people want to figure that out, firecracker,” Qrow answered, vague as ever. “It’s why they need people living here— so people won’t break in to investigate or have sex in the haunted house.”

 

“What if _I_ want to investigate or have sex in the haunted house?” She asked.

 

“Well you’re living here— so feel free to do whatever you want.” He motioned to their surroundings in reference to the house. “You probably won’t find anything though.”

 

Yang nodded and took as many crackers as she could fit in her left hand before making her way out of the kitchen, turning to make eye contact with her Uncle, and then her mother. “I take that as a challenge, then.”

 

She moved quietly through the sitting room, tip-toeing behind the couch as to not disturb whatever terms-and-conditions were pouring from Cinder Fall’s scarlet adorned lips. Yang overheard some fragments of conversation that were barely coherent, and didn’t bother to eavesdrop.

 

The staircase had no lights, but still stood surrounded by darkly painted walls. The banister reflected scarce light with a lacquer coated sheen; Yang’s eyes skimmed over chips in the sleek wood. The only remnants of previous owners. From what she remembered, the place had four bedrooms, and she got first dibs.

 

The master bedroom was located at the end of the hallway, and it was the room Yang made a beeline for; master bedrooms always had the most lavish of bathrooms. However, when she entered the room, despite its pale yellow walls and lacey ceiling, an uneasy feeling pierced her stomach and she immediately had to get out.

 

“That’s definitely where someone was murdered,” she reasoned, and returned to the stairs, making her way onto the third floor— hoping to find a secluded room to brood in, or maybe start a conspiracy board (red string and all) for her pending investigation. Luckily, she did find that perfect room; small, despite towering over her. She placed her backpack onto the dusty bed, which lay perpendicular to a large art nouveau window. This was going to be a long summer.

 

Outside, she could see Mercury, still skating around the block, attempting various tricks and turns. His board hit a rock eventually, sending him spiraling forward with his inertia, which he rolled with to catch his fall. As he rotated his body, his eyes met hers and he gave her a flirty smirk. She didn’t know how he spotted her from three floors below, on the street.

 

She noticed a notepad on the desk in the corner of the room, across from the bed. It looked like the ones you’d find in hotels, but without a watermark on it. She gripped the attached pen in her left hand, its presence foreign in un-callused skin.

 

Her dad brought her here to think about everything that happened. Losing her arm. But she was determined to do anything but that, whether it be moping around and slamming doors or… Or something else.

 

The pen dug into the paper, ink shaky and deliberate as she tried to make the words coherent.

 

_TO DO:_

__1) ~~Annoy dad~~ _ _call Ruby every night_ _

__2) Figure out about the_ ~~_ghost_ ~~ _“ghost”_ _

__3) Why is_ ~~_mom_ ~~ _Raven here?_ _

__4) Get better at writing w/ left hand_ _

 

 

She paused, tapping the pen against the table in thought. Her bottom lip filled into the gaps between her teeth as she stared out the window. Mercury continued skating carelessly, trying a sort of wheelie before skidding into the grass and laughing at himself. Yang looked back to the paper, determined.

 

_5) Mercury Black_


	2. The Blue Lantern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercury laughed at her grievances, head tilting just-so. She could see him clearer now, the sky blanketing his pale skin in a translucent radiance. “Seasons, Yang, are merely a social construct.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character set up before plot  
> Gatsby references galore. I was writing a report on Gatsby symbols at the same time as this chapter so that's why. Or it's because they're hints to the plot

**II**

_The Blue Lantern_

 

Yang lost her arm on a Tuesday; only a few weeks before the opium haze of June set in. It had been a little over a month since then, only two weeks out of the hospital, and she hadn’t yet gotten used to all the little things. See, it only took a couple of days to get from denial to anger in her cycle of recovery. She accepted now that yes, her arm was gone, and wasn’t coming back. However, she still found herself reaching for door handles with her right hand, or moving to crack knuckles that weren’t actually there.

 

The little things were what hurt the most, really.

 

Weiss, one of her and Ruby’s closest friends, toiled with her left hand, and gifted Yang  multitude of random left-handed objects. Yang had pulled out a left handed mug, and suddenly everything was so real to her. She sobbed for three hours, and then thanked Weiss for snapping her out of that catatonic slump. For providing her with actual solutions instead of whatever her father thought he was doing with this summer “trip.”

 

She woke up sweating and gripping the sheets with the fear they’d be ripped away, leaving her splayed out and vulnerable like Ophelia across the waves of her dream— open to be devoured by her own mind’s monsters. She’d been living here for only three days now, and couldn’t get a single night’s sleep without a nightmare. The content always changed, there was no discernible meaning, but the fear always remained the same.

 

She hadn’t made much progress on her summer “bucket list” yet— not really knowing where to start. Her father was still sorting out the rental specifics with the ever-elusive Cinder Fall, and Qrow was too busy with whatever he was “working” on with Raven to give her that town tour he’d promised. She never actually went outside of Qrow’s neighborhood when staying during Christmas, so her map of the town was severely lacking.

 

Mercury hadn’t shown up again, since that first day, which was pretty unexpected. All he did back when they met was flirt with her. Yang wasn’t sure what it was about him that interested her— caused her mind to gravitate towards his thin smirk and coffee stained drawl. Sure, he was attractive, but that couldn’t have been it. She’d had crushes before, and they didn’t feel anything like this.

 

\---

 

Upon her initial observations, Yang pictured the house as one of those obnoxious McMansions that practically spilled over the allotted land. It stood tall and wide, expanding back into confusing mazes and back rooms that had likely been built as servants’ quarters and hallways. But the lot did extend past the Gothic monstrosity and into a wild thicket, which only added to those aforementioned horror-movie-vibes.

 

Around midnight, the Moon would perch itself upon the forest’s canopy to watch Yang through the kitchen window as she sipped coffee. She was always tempted to open the door and run out into the night screaming, but she never did; scared of the Moon’s judging eyes.

 

Her hand gripped the handle of her new coffee mug tightly, thumb rubbing nervously into the white ceramic. She didn’t want to wake her father, who’d insist she get back to sleep or, even worse, _talk_ to him about it. Usually, she’d just finish her coffee and fuck around on her laptop upstairs until it was a more reasonable hour (maybe do some digging on Cinder Fall or the ghost while she was at it,) and her father would go on with his endeavours none-the-wiser.

 

The coffee was almost gone, to the point where she had to shake the mug in hopes that the ring of cocoa remnants around the walls would accumulate into one more sip. There was no distraction left in Yang’s beverage and the moonlight cast a pale, fragmented glow across her skin that reminded her of well, everything. Lifting her body off the barstool, she placed the mug in the sink, not bothering to wash the stain out of it. She jolted suddenly at a sound from the back door, hand whipping up to her right shoulder in a panic as she looked to it. Staring through the window was Mercury Black.

 

He didn’t seem to care that it was practically three in the morning, or that Yang was ready to bolt only seconds earlier. His eyes looked to her expectantly as he gave her an uninspired smile, and his hands offered a lazy wave. He didn’t look any different from three days ago: hair still messy and clothes still looking like he’d walked off the set of a Nirvana music video. Yang just stared at him for a few moments, hand frozen to her side, unable to move towards the door. There was just something about him; Mercury Black. _Something_.

 

Eventually she peeled herself away from her bewildered state, scrambling over to the door and ripping it open. The night air poured in like a smoke, enveloping Yang in the unknown. At this point, it was safe to say that Mercury _was_ the unknown. He didn’t say anything when she opened the door, walking in like he owned the place. He cracked the fridge open and grabbed a Pepsi, jumping onto the counter casually and giving Yang a pointed stare.

 

“So,” he flicked the top of the can after shaking it vigorously. “What’re you doing up this late?”

 

As if _that_ was the weirdest thing about the situation right now. “Shouldn’t _I_ be the one asking questions? What the hell are you doing here?” Yang managed to scream in a whisper, almost hissing in Mercury’s face.

 

“Aw, didn’t you miss me, Blondie?”

 

“No.” _Liar_. “Also, it’s Yang.”

 

“Right. Yang.” He finally opened the can, letting out a satisfied sigh as it didn’t explode, but still emitted a crack of Carbon dioxide. “I’m here because I want to be. So, why are you awake?”

 

“It really isn’t any of your business,” she spat, yanking the can out of his hands mid-sip. A bit of fizz leaked from his mouth and dribbled down his chin, he didn’t bother to wipe it off. “You shouldn’t be here!”

 

“Well, then let’s just leave,” he reasoned, hand sneakily reaching for his soda, which Yang moved farther from his twitching hands. “You’re obviously not going back to sleep, so.”

 

“Why would I do that?” she asked, even though she knew she’d end up going along with it anyways.

 

“Because you can.”

 

For some reason, in that moment, Yang found that Mercury’s thought process was completely sound. She looked at him for a long while before nodding and walking to the foyer for her jacket. “This better not take forever.”

 

“It’ll take as long as you want it to,” he said, finally getting his hands back on the Pepsi can and taking a long swig, breathing out happily. Though Yang had her jacket on, she struggled with knotting the right sleeve, trying desperately to do it as fast as possible. She didn’t want him to help. Or rather, she didn’t want him to offer, with that look in his eyes that reminded her how different everything was now.

 

But he didn’t.

 

Mercury stood patiently, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and expectant. She could tell that he was itching to tap his fingers or foot, but refrained from doing so. She pushed the sleeve through itself and yanked it tight after a few minutes of trouble, before walking past Mercury with a look that she hoped translated to: “Thank you but let’s not talk about this. Ever.”

 

He chuckled, starting towards the door behind her, looking scarily excited for her to pull it open again. When she did, walking out onto dew-laced grass and lungs dilating to the night’s countenance, Mercury quickly began racing into the trees, motioning for Yang to follow.

 

“Where are we going?” Yang asked, not sure if she expected an answer or not. He didn’t give her one for a while, choosing to weave through wilderness on a memorized path, trusting her to follow. She did.

 

“This is a sea-side town,” he stated, “why not go to the sea?”

 

The forest didn’t feel eerie, despite being stuck in a frozen silence, as a striking tangle of tree branches drained out the Moon’s Ecklebergian glare. Of course, the moonlight still slightly seeped into woods, its milky glow brushing a finish onto sun fearing ground, glossing over the pockets of shadows with an incomplete wonder. Certain moments and areas were left untouched by the light, and the only things Yang could see were her feet and the faint glistening of silver buttons on Mercury’s jacket.

 

“How far are we going?” Yang asked, panting slightly.

 

“The lot is pretty big,” Mercury explained, looking back at her, unfazed. “All these mansions have ocean views. This one is just far away.”

 

Eventually, the wilderness scattered in wake of a boardwalk, which unraveled like a carpet over a stormy ocean. Yang’s hair whipped around her head in a mane of gold as she gripped the ends of her jacket closer together in wake of the wind. Salt stabbed into her skin and wrote parting words under her palms. “Fucking _Christ_ , it’s freezing— I thought it was summer!”

 

Mercury laughed at her grievances, head tilting just-so. She could see him clearer now, the sky blanketing his pale skin in a translucent radiance. “Seasons, Yang, are merely a social construct.”

 

She couldn’t help but unleash a flurry of giggles in response, arm gripping her stomach in an attempt to keep them from boiling over. “What’s your deal, anyways?” she asked. “Why’d you bring me out here? To the ocean?”

 

Daggers of wind sliced through Mercury’s hair, slicking it back as he stared the horizon down. “You seemed interesting. I told you already, there’s not much to do around here.”

 

“I thought you could ‘observe the supernatural,’ or something?” Yang mocked, quoting him from their first meeting.

 

“You didn’t seem very interested in that before.” He shrugged, motioning for her to join him in walking farther down the boardwalk. A flickering bluish light stood solo in the midnight.

 

“Well I lied, before.”

 

He hummed, leaning against the railing and looking out over the ocean, eyes moving in tandem with the frosty peaks of cobalt mountains in a calculated rhythm. He asked eventually, after what felt like years of sizing up the sea: “Why is that?”

 

Shrugging, Yang picked at dirt under her index fingernail with that of her thumb, she hadn’t clipped it in a few weeks, as she’d been too embarrassed to ask someone for help. “I don’t know, but I am interested in it,” she answered halfheartedly. “Someone died in the house I’m going to be living in for the next three months.”

 

“People die all the time, though,” Mercury said. “But everyone just gets scared when it’s houses.”

 

“Yeah. I guess I just need a distraction.” She resisted the urge to rub at her stump.

 

Mercury sat down, back against the dock’s scaffolding. “If it helps with your distraction, I can tell you that it wasn’t just one person who died.” He only continued when Yang sat next to him, “The house burned down three times since it was built.”

 

“So is it because of a ghost?”

 

He looked to her, eyes blank. “That’s what people say.” His voice was cold like a river rock that had been molded by a frozen stream.

 

“No one knows?” Yang wondered.

 

“No one asked,” Mercury replied.

 

“Well, I need a distraction, so…” She wasn’t sure why she kept repeating that. Maybe because ending the conversation there felt too sad. “I guess I’m asking.”

 

She didn’t know why Mercury smiled, the way he did. As if he were greeting the world for the first time, unaware of its fatal flaws. He let his head fall back between two panels of the dock’s railing, his face parallel to the sky as he listened to the water’s turmoil. Yang followed suit, meeting eyes with cloud cloaked constellations and letting out a long sigh.

 

“It’d be more poetic if it were green, wouldn’t it?” Mercury said suddenly. His eyes remained trained on the celestial.

 

“What would?”

 

“The light.”

 

Yang stained her eyes to look at the flickering blue lantern.  

 

“I lost my arm on a Tuesday,” she said, not sure why she was saying it now. “I was just walking down the street and there was this _truck_.”

 

Her voice cracked a little under the pressure of her words and the memories behind them. There was nothing for Mercury to say, so he didn’t say anything.

 

“My sister’s off in Paris right now. I wanted her to stay, but I told her to go.” She took breaths between words, hoping that each white space would say what she couldn’t. “I’m stuck in this stupid, haunted house with a dad who treats me like I’ll break if he breathes too hard and this light that isn’t green.”

 

“So you _did_ get my reference,” Mercury acknowledged, if only to remind her that he was there.

 

“We read it last year in school. I wrote an essay all about it.” And the conversation was over. She didn’t know if she felt better now, or worse.

 

They sat there for awhile, not bothering to talk about trivial things. The ocean hammered against the dock, shaking it to remind them that they no longer stood on solid ground. Eventually a raindrop shattered into Yang’s hair, and another onto her cheek, not salty like the thin mist spraying from the sea. Mercury looked at the sky, breathing in and waiting for it to crack open before he could exhale.

 

A spark in the atmosphere prompted him to lift himself up and stand shakily on the rotting wood below. He held a hand out to Yang, muscles tensed and ready to pull her back onto her feet. She didn’t accept the offering.

 

“I want to stay here,” she said, ignoring the rain’s increasing intensity.

 

“You _do?_ ”

 

“I don’t want to go back yet,” she clarified. “I want to stay here.”

 

So they did.

 

They sat there in the rain, leaning against the railing, hands entwined as the waves lumbered across the ocean and into their foundation. She didn’t remember when her eyes fluttered closed, consciousness snatched by the cold, but they did.

 

She woke up on the couch, salt in her nose and a warm cup of coffee on the table beside her. She smiled slightly, shoulders relaxing as she gripped the mug’s handle.

 

“Maybe this summer won’t suck after all.”

 

\----

 

Nevermind. Summer definitely sucked. It sucked ass.

 

Her father thought it’d be fun to go out for dinner with Qrow and Raven. It would’ve been fine (not good, but fine) if he had any idea of what he was doing. Qrow gave him a map with the route they should take to the place, clearly marked with a thick red sharpie, and yet there they were. Stuck in traffic and going in the opposite direction.

He told her to “dress nice,” and she had no clue how she’d do that. Her wardrobe had significantly decreased in size after the accident, as she was too self conscious about her arm to wear anything too revealing. All she’d packed was a few T-shirts and a jacket, not prepared to be dragged into a fancy family dinner. She ended up just zipping the jacket up all the way, sliding into pants with the least patches or rips in them, and brushing her hair. Her dad looked at her for a few moments after she’d scrambled down the stairs, before nodding.

 

They left the house at around 7:30, when the sun had just started to feel exhausted from the day it hosted; droopy eyed and falling behind the silhouettes of trees and pink clouds. Outside was hazy with orange light and salmon reflections. As they got into the car, Yang let herself wave at Mercury, who still skated outside. He flashed her a grin and she just _knew_ what it meant.

 

Tai looked back at her from the driver’s seat and raised a brow. “Do you _know_ that boy?”

 

“Yes, I do.”

 

“Is he the one Qrow told you not to ‘know’?”

 

“Yes, he is.”

 

Tai bit his lip, prepared to add something, but Yang beat him to it. “Do you have a problem with that?”

 

Obviously, he did, but he didn’t say anything after that. An hour later and there they were. Stuck in traffic.

 

“Do you even know how to read a map?” Yang muttered, meeting eyes with her father through the rearview mirror. “We were supposed to be there like, 30 minutes ago.”

 

“You wanna drive, Yang?”

 

“I would if I could.”

 

Eventually they did make it to the restaurant; some small hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese joint. It was fancy in the sense that the food was rightfully expensive, and was set in this reddish glow that contrasted with the decorative fish tanks and potted bamboo. Qrow and Raven sat at a simply-ornate wooden table in the corner of the room, still perusing the menu in wait of their company.

 

“Tai, Yang,” Raven acknowledged with a nod.

 

“What about me?” Yang burst out, trying not to look too proud of her joke. Qrow chuckled while Tai looked ready to offer his daughter a fist bump. He never did, though, knowing that she’d reject it.

 

The waitress rushed over to take their order, red dress and mature posture contrasting with her young face, still framed with baby fat and set around wide eyes. Yang never had to look at the menu to order: “Can I just have the spiciest dish you have?”

 

Now Tai actually suggested a fistbump, which Yang just had to take, since spicy food was something that could surpass even the strongest barriers between the two. Qrow smiled slightly and Raen rolled her eyes, sipping on her water like the adult she was. “I honestly don’t understand how you can be so masochistic.”

 

“It’s not masochistic if you enjoy it,” Yang defended.

 

“Actually, that’s exactly what masochistic means.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“So,” Qrow started, grabbing a sugar packet from the condiments rack in the middle of the table, and ripping it open, before pouring the grains into his mouth as his family watched in horror. “What’ve you two been up to?”

 

“That woman, the real estate agent, Cinder Fall. She’s still going through the rental agreement with me. If I knew it’d be such a hassle, I’d have just rented out an Airbnb,” Tai sighed, exasperatedly rubbing his temple with his thumb and forefinger.

 

“I warned you, Taiyang,” Raven spat. “That bitch is just a snake, always after something.”

 

“Like what?” Yang piped up. Raven ignored her and continued her barrage.

 

“She’s going to be the end of you. She’ll make that contract seem thorough and legit, but the minute something goes wrong, which it will, she’ll get off scot-free while you pick up the pieces.”

 

Yang tuned out of the conversation in favor of her callous Uncle, who sipped his whiskey (still in a flask, even though they were literally in a restaurant.) “So what have _you_ been up to, firecracker? Got any epiphanies yet?”

 

“I made… a friend,” she concluded.

 

“Let me guess: silver hair, irritating, can’t seem to say anything that isn’t vaguely douche-y?”

 

“Wow, how’d you know?” Yang deadpanned, voice sardonic and monotonous.

 

“You really shouldn’t be hanging out with him, Yang.”

 

“Who are you; Dad?”

 

It was then that Tai turned to the two, summoned by his selective attention. “What was that?”

 

They ignored him.

 

“Anyways, I have other activities planned, don’t worry.” Yeah, she had to get on that. Maybe Mercury would help her, he seemed pretty bored.

 

“Oh?” Tai exclaimed, not aware that his daughter was actually planning to do something outside of the very engaging task of moping in her room all day.

 

“I’m observing the supernatural!” She explained, taking a bite out of her spicy-chicken-something that the waitress had stealthily slipped onto the table throughout their discussions.

 

“Oh.”

 

“You really think there’s a ghost there?” Qrow asked, eyebrows cocked as he stabbed his fork into his food.

 

“I know that someone died there. Multiple someones.”

 

“I’m going to _kill_ that little brat,” Qrow groaned.

 

Raven smirked at her younger brother, “how do you expect to do that?”

 

Qrow sighed, “I seriously can’t wait until he’s gone.”

 

“He’s leaving?” Yang asked innocently.

 

“He wants to,” Qrow said, not elaborating any further.

 

\---

 

They drove home in the dark. One of the car’s headlights sputtered in protest of the silence inside the vehicle. The dinner wasn’t awful. Yang enjoyed that it didn’t revolve around her, and her arm, and her depression, and what she was going to do next.

 

It’s not like she hated her dad before all this. They actually had a pretty great relationship, but something broke when he shipped her off across the country.

 

“I don’t know if you should be hanging out with this… Mercury character,” he started.

 

“This again?” Yang knocked her head on the seat behind her. “What else am I supposed to do? Sit in my room and cry?”

 

“Well, no but—”

 

“There’s literally nothing to do here, dad. So what if I snag myself a summer romance while I’m at it?” She didn’t realize what she’d said until her dad’s eyes widened as he inhaled sharply.

 

“If this _Mercury_ pulls anything—”

 

“I’ll be the first to punch him,” she finished. She wasn’t yet over the fact that she just spilled her romantic pursuits onto her dad.

 

The remainder of the drive was set in silence.

 

\----

Yang woke up at three in the morning again, but not because of a nightmare. No sweat decorated her brow, and her hand lay calmly to her side. No— she just woke up with this airy feeling in her stomach, and a need to get some coffee.

 

  She wasn’t sure why she bounded down the stairs so enthusiastically. She wasn’t sure why she finished her steaming coffee in one fell sip. She wasn’t sure why Mercury’s face appeared in the door, and she wasn’t sure why she pulled the thing open, welcoming the air inside like an old friend.

 

She was sure, however, why she kissed him.

 

“What was that?” Mercury asked, surprised that the standoffish Yang had just instigated a make-out session. He didn’t seem opposed to continuing, though.

 

“I told you,” she smiled. “I need a distraction.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on out it's gonna get intense my bois.  
> Comments are needed to feed me


	3. The White Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She keeps all of us trapped,” Neopolitan said. “She doesn’t want us to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things pick up. aka plot starts. 
> 
> ALSO I FUCKING FORGOT TO THANK MY BETAS @shipperoftrashyships and @glitteringeva. They both write amazing gng fics, and I'll give them a better thanks in the final note of the story, but really thanks. 
> 
> Comment for my health plz

**III**

_The White Woman_

 

Dreams were tricky. They’re always there, in your head, and only come out to play when they know you can’t catch them. The usual nightmares had stopped, though. Not completely, obviously, but she didn’t see the broken glass every night anymore— so it was a start. There was something refreshing about falling asleep with an eagerness to wake up again, knowing she’d open her eyes to the smell of coffee and nighttime voyages. 

 

She’d still dream, though. Whether it was nightmares, or her brain’s shitposts. However, she wasn’t sure if this one fell into either category.

 

Yang stood in a park, winding sidewalk guiding her feet through a frozen moment. Trees stood, decorating an otherwise dull stretch of desaturated grass, and a lake of gasoline dug into the hilly earth. She wasn’t sure how she knew it was gasoline, because it had no apparent smell, but she did. It was one of those dreams where she knew everything, but couldn’t bring it to mind unless it was needed. 

 

Unlike with her nightmares, she could immediately understand that she walked through an ungrounded universe— fully lucid as her feet followed the beckoning smile of her shadow. The cement had no discernable presence, like her body still felt the coarse sheets, rather than stone and bleached air. There was no sun, but everything was bright, stark shadows and white-washed greens hinting that maybe the light came from  _ somewhere.  _ Even though she knew where she was, or where she wasn’t, something drew her down the path. 

It was like time had stopped; nothing moved but Yang herself. A valley of ashes just for her to explore. The whole world was on the tip of her tongue, stuck in the back of her throat.

 

In time, the path came to an end, even though the sidewalk extended far ahead of her. She just stopped suddenly, hitting the walls of her conscious, fluttering away like a moth. Drawn, instead, to the Woman. 

 

Though this whole dream was encapsulated in mystery, Yang knew, somehow, that the Woman was meant to be there. That Yang was meant to sit next to her, on the only park bench, as she watched the gasoline lake with breadcrumbs in her mothlike hands. Cold, blue fingers fumbled with each one as veiled eyes waited for a bird to land at bare, ashen feet. So she did, sit there, because it was something she knew was important. 

 

There was no way to see the Woman’s face, as it was cloaked by sheets of bridal illusion— only the corners of chapped lips draped from underneath. Her whole body was bridal illusion, really, though. Pearls ornamented a gaunt neck, as swirls of carefully whipped chocolate locks poked out through tears in a crystal shawl. 

 

“ _ It was my wedding day,”  _ the Woman said, breadcrumbs shifting in her palms. Yang couldn’t look away from those hands, the manicured finish of each fingernail broken by decay. 

 

She nodded, as if she understood. 

 

“ _ I’m so dreadfully cold,”  _ the Woman explained, though it didn’t explain anything. 

 

Yang nodded again. 

 

_ “Could you light the fire for me?”  _ Her voice shook, but managed to float through the air with the cadence of silver coins, scattering across a glass ceiling. “ _ I’m just so cold.” _

 

Yang nodded, and the lake was ablaze. 

 

X

X

X

 

Yang had been in Mistral for a few weeks now, easily coming to terms with how the remainder of the summer would go. She’d learned a few things about the town, which would only aid in Qrow’s still impending tour. Mercury told her as much as he could in their days lounging in her room, and their nights spent gazing at the sea, though most of the time they just spoke through the subtext, through the breaths taken between kisses, and through the beams of blue light on the boardwalk.

 

     1.     Nothing ever happens. She pulled up a map of the town on her computer, hoping to find something,  _ anything,  _ to do— but concluded that Mercury wasn’t just being a bored, ADHD driven teenager. There was literally nothing in Mistral. Not even one of those “pet a lobster,” exotic restaurants that had supposedly been around since the forties. The only novelty about Mistral was the house on Fox Street where Yang now resided, and the most recent of the deaths was literally 24 years prior.

     2.     The whole idea of “getting your wits about yourself in the city” was a flat out lie. It was one of those things that people bragged about when describing life in Mistral. “I mean, it’s so  _ close  _ to Boston—” but it ended up being like a New Years Resolution. An “I’ve been meaning to drive up there but…” which never happens.

It was the same with Yang. She hailed from Arizona, and while the place was known for its Grand Canyon, she’d only been there about three times. Two of which were for school trips. It was probably for the best, though, since her dad always had panic attacks as his daughters walked along the edge of a thousand foot cliff like it were a street curb. 

 

     3. No one actually talked about the ghosts in her new house. Mercury didn’t even need to tell her this, since it immediately became apparent when she interacted with anyone native to Mistral. 

 

Case in point: Karen. 

 

After a few weeks of Mercury’s fridge-raids, the Pepsi supply had become dangerously low. To the point of being nonexistent. Mercury didn’t say anything when he opened the fridge to an empty second shelf, but Yang was scared that maybe he’d stop coming if she didn’t go and get more. And thus began her long winded voyage to the only supermarket in town. The same teenager she’d seen from the car stacked boxes filled with more boxes in the corner, while an older woman (who looked like a soccer mom past her prime) manned the register. A perfectly aligned nametag read “HI MY NAME IS  _ KAREN _ ” in big, bright letters.

Yang dragged a twelve pack of Pepsi to the front counter, and Karen gave her face and arm a double take. “I don’t recall seeing you around here, dear.”

 

The last word, that “dear”, sounded so forced that Yang was just about ready to give Karen an award for all her efforts. Though the words were just observation, her voice reeked of this judgemental rot which wound Yang up to no end. 

 

“I’m just staying in the old house on Fox Street for the summer,” Yang replied casually, slightly pushing the Pepsi towards Karen in hopes that she’d just cut the small talk and scan the thing already. Karen raised an overly plucked eyebrow in mock surprise, as if she already knew all about the new people encroaching on forbidden lands and forbidden subjects.

 

“ _ Are  _ you?” She droned, nasally voice never managing to grow on Yang.

 

“Yeah— I hear it’s haunted, though. Anything I should watch for?” She hoped that her interaction with this obnoxious woman would be satiated by potential information. But Karen pursed her lips, tight to the point that the surrounding skin stretched thinly across her teeth, fading into a sharp, pale yellow. The wrinkles around her mouth subsided, but accumulated in her furrowed brow. 

 

Karen grabbed the Pepsi and scanned it, throwing it into a plastic shopping bag the second the barcode registered. “I hope you enjoyed your shopping experience. That will be $6.99, dear.”

 

Yang begrudgingly handed the money over, though struggling to squeeze her wallet out of her back pocket, which stretched tight across her ass (if she was going outside, she was going to look damn good doing so.) Karen didn’t hesitate to shove her out of the store with a droopy glare. However, the perpetually bored teenager seemed to have a different attitude towards Yang, bolting after her and leaving the boxes forgotten. 

 

“Hey!” they called, prompting Yang to turn her head, though she didn’t pivot her feet. “I heard you talking about the house on Fox Street. Is it true you’re living there?” 

 

“Yeah, it is.”

 

“That place is totally haunted.” They bounced a little on their converse-clad heels as they spoke. “Especially since all the deaths were all so controversial.”

 

“What do you mean by that?” Yang asked, turning fully towards them now. 

 

“Oh yeah, everyone knows about the two that died back in ‘94. Some say it was murder. Who knows?” They chuckled a bit before continuing. “And then the one before that, the Torchwicks.” They didn’t explain what it was that set the Torchwicks apart, probably assuming that Yang already knew. Like it was common information. 

 

“It seems interesting,” Yang observed. The kid nodded frantically. 

 

“Oh yeah, there’s so much you can find at the library. They keep all the old newspapers on microfilm in the back room— we all like looking through them since there’s so much weird shit in this town.”

 

“It didn’t seem like there was much of anything in this town,” Yang deadpanned.

 

“Not now, anyways. Before the last fire at that house, there was all sorts of weird shit going on. Drug rings, romantic scandals, problem kids.”

 

“What happened after the fire?”

 

“FBI came to investigate the deaths, and found everything else, I guess.” They shrugged, before their mouth curled upward and revealed crooked teeth. They looked a lot younger when smiling, brown eyes wide and eager. “I could help you, in the library, if you wanted. I can show you the ropes and everything.” 

 

Yang’s first instinct was to accept, but then her mind flashed to her silver haired partner-in-crime-solving, and she shook her head. “Sorry, I’m planning on going with someone already but, maybe next time?”

 

“Oh— who are you going with?” 

 

Yang opened her mouth to answer before being cut off by the unreal shrill of Karen’s voice, ringing from inside the supermarket. She must’ve just realized that her kid was interacting with the new crippled girl instead of cleaning up the mess in aisle five or whatever. “ _ Skylar,  _ let the girl leave for Chrissake!” 

 

‘Skylar’ gave their mother’s request a disgusted groan, as they began to walk back inside. “I told you, mom, it’s  _ Skye _ . Not Skylar.” While their tan fingers gripped the doorknob, they turned and waved back at Yang. “I’ll see you soon, then!”

 

“Yeah.”

 

She left with a shrug, swinging the Pepsi’s weight around with each step. Yang had planned to take her search to the library eventually, accounting her laziness to the sheer amount of time she had. However, now that plan became more relevant with the information that Skye supplied. The Torchwicks. The FBI. Hell, maybe Cinder Fall was connected. Maybe it was all coincidence. 

 

It wasn’t like she’d even seen a ghost at her house yet. Everyone said it was haunted— Mercury insisted, even though there was no proof. Yang didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts, but something about her Uncle, about the whole town gave her this feeling that maybe she should believe in something. 

 

She walked back to the house on Fox Street, Pepsi in hand, prepared to see that shock of silver hair shifting with each movement of the skateboard over the asphalt. Still stuck on the same trick. He told her that he skated there, in front of the house, because his dad didn’t like the noise. Neither did any of the neighbors. Usually the place was uninhabited anyways, so he didn’t bother anyone. “I’ll leave you all alone when I get this one right,” he would say, though Yang really didn’t mind. 

 

As she approached the house and its shadow, Yang smiled, holding the plastic bag up for him to see. He darted forward, screeching into a stop and letting his skateboard fly off in front of him once he’d jumped off to greet her. 

 

“I see you’re restocking the supply,” he inquired, eyeing the shopping bag’s silhouette with a vested interest. “Didn’t think you liked me that much.”

 

“Well you’re in luck,” Yang smirked, wishing that she had another hand to rest on her hip sassily, but she settled with leaning her weight onto one foot instead. “Because I like you  _ very  _ much.”

 

Since she’d kissed him that one night, they’d been going pretty strong in whatever they had. There was this unspoken agreement not to label anything, not even sure if it was more than mutual boredom and attraction, but Yang still sat herself close to him as they watched dumb videos up in her room, and Mercury’s arm would nestle behind her neck, over her shoulders with an unconscious affection. 

 

Yang handed him the Pepsi, arm already tired from carrying it for so long. He obliged, already welcoming himself inside the house, to the dismay of Yang’s father, who sat reading on the couch.  Mercury had been coming over more often than Tai would've liked (even though any times were “too often” for him in actuality). Yang chuckled as her father glared, and as Mercury just flaunted his haul of Pepsi, smirk creeping through a carefully crafted mask of stoicism. “ _ Hello _ , Mr. Xiao Long.”

 

“Hello  _ Mercury _ .”

 

Their staring contest was interrupted by Yang’s giggle. She wasn’t sure how her dad hadn’t strangled him yet. As they entered the kitchen, she voiced this concern. “One of these days, he’s gonna kill you, Merc.” 

 

Mercury ripped a Pepsi off the plastic rings before tossing the rest in the fridge haphazardly. He didn’t seem to mind that the stuff was warm, gulping it down like it had been embedded in ice. “I’d like to see him try.” 

 

“He’s got like fifty black belts,” Yang elaborated. “No matter how much of a bad boy you are, you can’t touch him.”

 

“You have a thing for bad boys, don’t lie,” he countered, before applying pressure through his thumb and into the aluminium can, making an aggravating noise. “Also I’m too pretty to kill.”

 

“Sometimes you’re really gay, Merc.”

 

“Have you seen Cole Sprouse? Would bang.”

 

She liked that about him. Granted, she liked a lot of things about him— but she couldn’t wrap her head around how he’d just go with whatever. As if there were no consequences to anything he did or said. As if the world no longer held him under its thumb. Fuck, maybe she did fall for bad boys.

 

Yang perched herself on a barstool as Mercury drank, leaning forwards on it until the back legs lifted slightly off the hardwood floor. “I’ve been told to look to the library,” she said. 

  
“For what?” He cocked an eyebrow, looking at her sideways through his choppy bangs. 

 

“Stuff about the ghost, obviously. Some kid, Skye told me about some things. You know them?”

 

“Maybe met them a couple times,” he shrugged. “I thought you were done with the whole ghost thing.” He ran his hand through his hair as his shoulders tensed. He was right, Yang had been a little caught up in lounging around with her new… friend and looking at memes on the internet to do any proper research. Well, she attempted to find answers a few times. She asked her Uncle, which naturally garnered nothing. She took a peek at Cinder Fall’s clipboard, surprised to see that it was only comprised of legitimate documents. She even scheduled a coffee meeting with Raven that weekend, but didn’t expect much to come of it.

 

“I’m not done with anything,” she complained. “I’m just… in a slump.”

 

“As if you’re a detective in some Noir drama,” Mercury said, rolling his eyes playfully, which prompted Yang to reach over and pinch him. 

 

“Are you my femme fatale, then?” She let her chair back down onto the floor, before hopping off and brushing her body down. “Anyways, I’m gonna get some swag periodicals or something. Like, do some research. Wanna come with?” 

 

“I’m always down for some Nancy Drew action,” he smirked. “Especially the action part.” 

 

“You’re insufferable.”

 

He held up a finger as he finished his Pepsi before letting out a satisfied exhale. Yang admired the way his jaw clenched with each swallow, like a fucking moron. “You know what you’re looking for, right?”

 

“Torchwick. That’s the only name I remember,” she answered. 

 

“Yeah— they have random statues and paintings all over this place,” he explained. “Her family donated enough money to random shit to build her own goddamn town.”

 

“Her?”

 

“Neopolitan Torchwick— her maiden name was something else, but I can’t think of it now. I failed history.” He slipped his phone out of his jacket pocket, frowning at the vibrating screen. She couldn’t get a good read on the contact name, but had a good idea who it was. “Give me a sec— hello dad.”

 

Yang drummed her fingers on the table awkwardly, not really knowing where to look. Mercury rarely mentioned his father, other than the offhanded spite that seemed to accompany the subject of family. Everytime he evaded the subject, Yang was grateful that her dad wasn’t that much of an ass. More of a diet ass. Mercury bit his lip as he listened to the other end, before hanging up.

 

“I’m gonna have to take a rain check on the whole field trip thing, my dad wants me to fix some shit at the house.” Yang’s shoulders slumped slightly, but Mercury seemed to notice, rushing quickly to satiate her disappointment. “It’ll only take like three hours, I can swing back here and help you sort through information if you want?”

 

“Sure your dad won’t keep you?” Maybe she sounded a little bitter there, but she didn’t think too much of it. 

 

“He won’t. Doesn’t care that much.” He grabbed his skateboard, almost bolting out the door. He was either eager to leave, or eager to get this all over with. Of course, he didn’t forget to wave mockingly towards Tai. “Have a wonderful day, Mr. Xiao Long!”

 

The minute the door closed, Tai looked to Yang and deadpanned, “I fucking hate your boyfriend.”

X

X

x

The Mistral Library was different from the ones Yang was used to. Arizona’s were flat and long, built in the 70s when no specific architectural styles were prominent; pale bricks, red mulch, some decorative cactuses. This library took up a whole block of the city, built on a framework of centuries, windows carved from cold stone. She swore that she could see bullet holes along the walls from the American Revolution. Skye was right, Mistral was boring, but it had history. 

 

As she approached the library, the sun hid from her view, just barely peering over the building’s silhouette, casting a formidable shadow onto the sidewalk, pouring over the main road. A halo of orange light reflected off of its gothic skeleton and dripped into the crevices that stuck out far enough to catch it. Yang shielded her eyes and walked inside, on a mission to get as much information as possible and share it with Mercury. She realized then that she thought about him a lot— before proceeding to think about him more.

 

The interior of the library wasn’t what Yang expected, either. It didn’t reflect the outside at all, looking like one of those libraries from 90s computer commercials where 30 year olds dressed as teenagers would crowd around one workspace to send an email through AOL. Plastic tables, cheap white lights that rotted into a pale yellow, blank walls only inhabited by old inspirational posters, and bookshelves built with fake wood. Nothing like the gothic cove she anticipated. She gave the room an unimpressed purse of the lips, before turning to the front desk, where an old man sat, hunched over and typing something on his computer with a singular index finger. 

 

“Uh— hello? I’m looking for the microfilm? About local things.”

 

The man didn’t speak, but his eyes flickered up to her face, and his unoccupied hand pointed shakily to a back door. Yang nodded quickly before speed-walking away, unsettled by the demeanor he gave off. She wasn’t sure if he ever blinked. 

 

When she entered the back room, she was amazed by how many filing cabinets there were, filled to the brim with microfilm, while a few readers lined the back wall. A large painting stood on the wall across from the door, drawing Yang’s eyes to those of the portrait. 

It was a woman. The Woman. Draped in all white, dark hair framing heterochromic eyes, plump lips and rosy cheeks contrasting with a bony neck and a steely gaze. Yang had met this woman, the Woman, in her dreams. She’d never seen her face, but now it was like a missing puzzle piece, creating a finished picture. A plaque lay underneath the painting, stainless steel painted gold. 

 

NEOPOLITAIN TORCHWICK 1934-1964

 

Yang repeated the year in her head, mouthing it over and over. “1964. One, nine, six, four. Nineteen. Sixty. Four.” She didn’t stop until she’d combed through the years and reached it. 1964. Luckily for her, each issue had been carefully labeled by its headline, so it was simple enough to find what she was looking for:  **NEWLYWEDS NEWLY DEAD IN HOUSE FIRE**

To maximize her time, she took pictures through the reader for later reference. The same picture of Neopolitan from the wall rested in the top corner, though this time accompanied by a taller man who Yang assumed to be her husband. She quickly scanned the article, making sure it was the right one. 

 

“ _ Beloved town sweetheart Neopolitan Fall wedded to one Roman Torchwick, accomplished businessman and bachelor last night; though celebration stopped short when their house tragically burned to the ground. Ironically, the same house had burned down 30 years prior in 1934. People have their suspicions of foul play, but nothing has come up as of yet.  _

_ Neopolitan was the daughter of…” _

 

It went on for a few pages, but Yang took no extra time to read it as she bolted to find the issue from 1934. Unfortunately, the headline labels there were scarce— and it was impossible to find any organization there. She decided to end her search there, opting to investigate the Woman, Neopolitan, before any other ghosts that may have been in the house on Fox Street. 

 

She grabbed other 1964 articles from around the same time, hoping to get extra information on the Torchwicks’ untimely demise, and left the library. 

 

X

X

X

 

Mercury was waiting for her when she got home. Fucking around on his skateboard, as expected. It had been over three hours, which took her by complete surprise, since it felt like a whole thirty minutes. He smiled and waved, and she returned the favor. 

 

“Did you get anything?”

 

She nodded, grabbing his wrist and leading him inside. Tai groaned when he saw them, but Yang ignored it. Mercury didn’t ignore it, and slowed down to give Tai that characteristic mock-salute before he kept after Yang. “Hello, Mr. Xiao Long.”

 

Mercury hated walking up all the stairs. “Did you have to pick  _ that  _ room, Yang? Seriously, why did you think it’d be a good idea? The haunted ass basement would be better than this shit.”

 

They may have fucked in the basement a few days prior. 

 

He refused to go down there, for some reason, saying that it was like a fucking horror movie and  _ this  _ is always how the horny teenagers always die, but one look at Yang’s puppy eyes and it was over. The stairs creaked underneath each step, and the light bulb went out the second she flicked the switch to turn it on. Mercury ranted behind her the whole time that he  _ fucking told her so _ . 

 

Yang found a springy guest bed and bounced on it, patting the side for Mercury to join her. He rolled his eyes and pinned her down into it, though he looked utterly uninspired. “This moment would be arguably more sexy if we were upstairs,” he said, breathing into the corner of her neck, before nibbling on her ear. 

 

“I beg to differ,” she whispered, tearing his black shirt over his head (as best she could with one goddamn arm. He might’ve helped her a bit) and wrapping her legs around his torso. “I think that this moment would be arguably _ less _ sexy if we were upstairs.”

 

He unclasped her bra, hand gracing her spine in whispers. “I swear there’s a roach watching this shit with popcorn.”

 

“Wouldn’t want to deprive him of a show, would we?” 

 

“Guess not.” 

 

It was very, very good sex. Something that surprised Yang, really, since she only had one nondominant arm. But Mercury made it feel like she hadn’t lost anything, like she’d grown an extra pair (or five). Maybe the movies had it right— sex in a haunted house was hot as fuck.

 

“I chose this room because I’m emo and need the attic. I thought you would understand,” she replied, laughing as he groaned with each step.

 

“I think that my convenience overrides my desire to be edgy at this point.”

 

“YOLO, Merc. Gotta live on the edge.”

 

“Ah yes, ‘you only live once.’ Best thing to say in a house full of vengeful spirits.”

 

They reached her room and plopped on the bed, his hand clasped around hers as she emailed the articles to herself to read from her laptop instead. “I didn’t feel like looking for the other ones. Neopolitan should work for today.”

 

“She’s the one everyone knows,” Mercury said, finger stroking her shoulder lightly. “Apparently her husband was a drug dealer or something. People were after him.”

 

“Drug dealer? In the 60s?”

 

“Everyone did drugs in the 60s, Yang.”

 

“Anyways, I think I met Neopolitan.” Mercury’s eyes widened slightly, prompting her to continue. “I’ve been having weird dreams, I think she was in one of them. She looked just like the picture.” She pointed to the portrait of Neopolitan on her computer. 

 

“Maybe because there’s a picture of her in the house?” He suggested, ever the cynic.

 

“There  _ is? _ ”

 

“Right above the fireplace.”

 

She bolted up, before scrambling down the stairs while Mercury followed lazily behind. “I  _ fucking  _ hate stairs.”

 

And Mercury was right, there she was, right above the fireplace. It was a smaller picture, and she was with her husband, though there were no smiles on their features. Tai peered over his book skeptically, “if the two of you do anything down here I’m going to actually throw up.” 

 

She stuck her tongue out at him, before looking back to the picture. She had no idea why she hadn’t noticed it before— maybe because she never really stayed in the sitting room for long, because she was bad at looking at the little things. This could explain the dream, just subliminal messaging, rather than a message from a ghost. Maybe there was nothing special about this house except for a series of coincidences. 

 

Yang turned away from the picture, meeting eyes with Mercury. “Is there really a ghost?”

He began to shrug, like he always did, but froze, his eyes widening and boring into Yang’s skull. She would’ve thought it was just him spacing out, if her father wasn’t jumping to his feet from the couch, eyes trained on the same spot. She turned around. The portrait of Neopolitan Torchwick smiled, revealing rows of perfectly aligned teeth, fingers fluttering around her neck, prying at her husband’s hand which still sat limply on her shoulder. 

 

“What the—” Tai was cut off as he was shoved backwards by an indiscernible force, flipping into the wall and jostling the decorative fish sculptures off their hangers, crashing into ceramic armageddon on the floor. 

 

_ Would you light the fire? I’m so cold. _

 

“Fuck off,” Mercury spat.

 

The lights flickered as he crashed into the china cabinet, which shattered with his weight and blanketed him in sharp feathers of glass. Yang resisted the urge to help them, one foot aiming to see if her father’s spine hadn’t broken and the other reaching to see if Mercury hadn’t been sliced to pieces. She stood her ground, facing the flickering eyes of Neopolitan Torchwick. 

 

_ I’m so cold. _

 

“What the fuck do you want?” Yang hissed, fist clenching as she attempted to grab the portrait and break it over her knee. Instead, she went flying head first into the back wall. 

 

Everything went black.

 

X

X

X

 

The lake still burned brightly, when Yang returned to the park bench, sitting back next to the Woman. Neopolitan Torchwick. Her veil had been ripped away, along with a good chunk of her previously flawless hair, revealing those sad eyes and their ballpoint nose. The breadcrumbs lay on the floor, uneaten and decaying. 

 

“Do you think any will come?” She asked. Yang cocked her head in confusion, before Neopolitan elaborated. “Birds. Do you think any birds will come?”

 

“This is a dream, so anything can happen,” Yang answered. “Can you stop hurting us?”

 

“I don’t want to hurt anybody.” Neopolitan pursed her lips. “I just want to leave.”

 

“Is there something keeping you here or something?” 

 

“She keeps all of us trapped,” Neopolitan said. “She doesn’t want us to go.”

 

“Who?” Yang asked. 

 

“Salem.” 

 

The lake burned brighter at that word— that name. The fire’s tide began to rise, tongues of scorch licking at pieces of grass and climbing up trees, eager to devour. Yang didn’t know much, but it was apparent that they didn’t have much time left. 

 

“Free us?” Neopolitan asked, looking to Yang with white eyes. 

 

“I can try.”

 

“That’s enough.”

 

X

X

X

 

She woke up to the concerned face of her father and Mercury’s hand wrapped around hers. They were saying something, but their words were desaturated, as if she were underwater. Yang shook her head, to quiet them, sitting up and ignoring the stiffness of her legs and neck. Her feet rested quietly on the floor, though she struggled to maintain balance with only one arm. Determined, lilac eyes stared at the portrait of Neopolitan Torchwick. She knew what she had to do. 

Yang picked the painting up, resting it against her calf on the floor as she switched the fireplace on, feeling her lungs fill with warmth as it sparked to life. Gulping, she threw the portrait into the fire, flinching as the frame’s glass cracked in the heat, spitting embers into her space. She watched as a tear fell down the rosy cheek of Neopolitan Torchwick, before being engulfed in flames. 

 

_ I’m so cold. _

 

_ So cold _

 

_ Thank you.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm uploading this at 1 AM because I've been working on hw all night, so I can't leave a thoughtful author's note.
> 
> Please please please comment though! I spend a ton of time writing this shit. You have no clue


	4. The Black Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June Fourth, 1969
> 
> Dear,
> 
> Longing for ice cream as of late. Larger issues present themselves, yes, but I can’t help but miss the little things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really fun one

**IV**

_The Black Book_

  
  


Yang found the first letter collecting dust in the wreckage of the china cabinet. Blades of glass rippled under her feet, before breaking in satisfied crunches with the force of her shoes. Mercury had spiraled into the thing with the force of an angry bull. His jacket was sliced up, and luckily cushioned the blow. As she fingered the glass, even though it shattered randomly, the edges were dull. Like butter knives. The framework had collapsed as lengths of burgundy wood splintered apart, limply hanging towards the floor. The letter was nestled between pieces of porcelain, probably folded into some vase or bowl before the whole thing came apart. 

 

After she burned the portrait of Neopolitan Torchwick, the lights hadn’t stopped flickering, but everything else did. The fire had turned an odd shade of green as her face melted away, licking violently at the canvas. Yang wasn’t sure how she freed the ghost, or if she freed her at all in the first place. It seemed too simple. 

 

Her dad had no idea what was going on, mumbling his disbelief to himself as he paced around the room, hands gripping his head as he tried to figure out whether or not he was dreaming. Mercury sat silently on the couch and watched the fire, almost angrily, drumming his fingers against the leather cushion so loudly that Yang could hear it from across the room. They moved in between the lights, as if he wanted to time his thoughts with the unrest.

 

Yang didn’t really know what to do, so she cleaned up pieces of broken glass. 

 

The paper looked like it was ripped out of some journal, yellowing and thin, fraying at the edges. The words were written in black ink, slowly and heavily, certain letters unreadable where it blotched. It seemed like a page from a diary, an entry short and sweet. Yang ran her hand over each one as she read it.

 

_ August, 1964 _

_ Dear, _

_ Couldn’t figure out the pipes. It’s hard to tell what goes where in this house. Never thought that it could fit under the thing, but it managed to squeeze in. Don’t ask me to move it again. Everyday there’s more people coming. Really should just burn it.  _

 

_ Roman Torchwick _

 

Yang inhaled sharply as she read the signature at the end. This was written by one of the ghosts in her house, just the month he died. She reread it a few times before letting herself breathe out, looking at Mercury who froze mid finger-tap to cock an eyebrow, gesturing with his eyes at the paper in her hands. 

 

“I found it here,” she said, raising it up slightly. “It’s some diary entry from Roman Torchwick.”

 

Mercury nodded slowly, and it looked like he wasn’t going to get up until he finally did, as if propelled by his own inability to care. His stride was forced, and as he read the words, his eyes didn’t move. “You think something’s in the pipes?”

 

“Well, duh.” She rolled her eyes, before looking at her dad, still pacing in bewilderment. Mercury nodded slightly, eyes unfocused. “Are you okay?”

 

“You knew to burn the painting from a dream she showed you,” Mercury snapped. “She showed me something too.”

 

She didn’t know whether to touch him or not, so she opted for standing close enough to brush against his shoulder and breathe his air. He didn’t move, or say anything, but his eyes looked at the fireplace, its green enchanting him. “But are you okay, though?”

 

“Sure.” His voice sputtered out there, not bothering to even complete the syllable. He managed to tear his gaze away from the emerald pyre, eventually, and kicked some glass into a pile. “Seems a bit too easy, though. Why wasn’t she freed when the house burned down in ‘94 if that was all it took?”

 

He was right. There were so many things there that didn’t add up about all of this. Taiyang caught on to their conversation and broke himself out of his panic to confront them. He put a hand on his hip and shoved himself between his daughter and her “less-than-savory” boyfriend before “Do you two want to tell me what’s happening?”

 

“Not particularly,” Mercury deadpanned, not even flinching when Tai looked ready to pummel him to the ground. Yang brushed them both off to offer her own answer.    
  


“We were… observing the supernatural?” Yang suggested, voice raising into a squeaky, nervous, falsetto. 

 

“That’s the understatement of the year right there.” Tai shook his head before humming. “I’m going to call Qrow.”

 

“Officer Branwen? Why?” Mercury chuckled, fingers twitching by his side. 

 

“He’s my uncle,” Yang explained casually. 

 

“Well shit, does that make sense.”

 

Tai narrowed his eyes before he reached Qrow’s number, only to groan when no one responded. Mercury looked both relieved and nervous at the same time. Yang couldn’t see who his second choice was, but could only guess it was Raven, seeing as she was currently living with her brother. Still, no one answered. 

 

“Well that worked well,” Mercury observed sarcastically, before Yang punched him in the ribs. Wincing, he chuckled. “Wow, thanks Yang.” 

 

“You’re welcome.” 

 

“Both of you, stop.” Tai put his phone in his pocket and looked to them, breathing in slowly to calm himself down. A trait that Yang never had— too stubborn to not be angry or hyper at every waking moment. “Whatever you two were doing in between your make-out sessions is obviously no longer some novelty  _ game _ . We need to think about what just happened, and figure out how we’ll act from here on out. Capiche?”

 

Mercury gave him a salute, and Yang nodded. Tai motioned for Yang to hand him the paper she’d found, which she did, and straightened the wrinkles out over a raised knee before reading it. 

 

“Roman Torchwick,” he started, eyes moving from the letter to the silver haired menace next to him. “What can you tell me about him?” 

 

“There’s statues of him all around. He married Neopolitan. He died here.” Mercury didn’t put much enthusiasm into it until Tai moved his weight onto the other foot threateningly. “Okay! Okay! He had a ton of money, and his family worked closely with Neo’s, that’s probably why they married in the first place. Her family basically controlled the Mistral lumber export.” 

 

“Neo?” Yang crossed her arms. Or at least, she tried, forgetting that she only had one arm to cross— so it just looked like she was awkwardly stroking her shoulder. 

 

“Short for Neopolitan?” He shrugged. “It’s easier to say.”

 

Tai shook his head and rotated his wrist. “Please, just continue.”

 

“Alrighty then,” he sighed. “No one really like actually knows about him. But there are rumors that he was this big time drug dealer in cahoots with the Falls.”

 

“I remember you mentioned drugs,” Yang stated offhandedly, before hardening her gaze in realization. “Wait, Neopolitan’s last name was Fall, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Like, Cinder Fall?”

 

Tai groaned, either because Cinder having something to do with the ghosts was either glaringly predictable, or abhorrently inconvenient. Meanwhile, Mercury nodded, stone faced. “Only Falls die here.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“This house has always belonged to the same family. They don’t move out, for some reason, and they always die.”

 

“Good for us,” Yang smirked, wiggling her eyebrows at her dad. “We’re not gonna die.”

 

“The blood on your face would beg to differ.” He scrunched his face up and his entire body looked ready to bolt to a medicine cabinet for some aspirin and cookie monster patterned band-aids like the dad he was. 

 

“So do you think Cinder has anything to do with all this?” Yang pondered, ignoring her fretting father. “Or does she just want to sell the house where her whole family is destined to die, or whatever.”

 

Nobody said anything, and the green flames never subsided, still burning away happily. Reflected in grey irises. 

 

X

X

X

 

They decided to give it a day. 

 

Mercury went home, though begrudgingly, skateboard tucked under a stiff arm. Tai finished his book, having to look paragraphs over again because he never actually read them in the first place. And Yang called Ruby. That was the only thing she could do really. 

Her sister was inarguably one of the most important people in her life. She always knew what to do. Even if it was the wrongest of decisions, it wasn’t one you’d regret— it felt right. Because that’s what Ruby was; everything right. Yang couldn’t call her every night, unfortunately. Not only did the time difference screw everything up, long distance calls from Mistral tended to cost more than long distance calls from anywhere else. Apparently it was because there wasn’t a cell tower in sight— or she never really had to pay attention to the prices before.

 

But they called at least thrice a week. Ruby told her all kinds of stories from Europe. Yang could tell that she was holding back in enthusiasm, just as she held back in the exact details of what was going on in the house, if Ruby ever asked. She did tell her sister plenty about her summer ‘romance’, needing a way to burst out into childish giggles and gush about how fucking hot the other teen was. 

 

_ “Yang? Hi!” _

 

“Hi.”

 

“ _ What’s up— it’s pretty late here, by the way.” _

 

“Yeah, sorry. I needed to talk about something.”

 

“ _ Oh. Is it about ‘Mercury’?” _ She inflicted her voice with a mock dramatic-romanticism before giggling a bit. Yang smiled fondly, before shaking her head softly, even though she knew Ruby couldn’t see it. 

 

“No, I doubt you’d want to hear about my heterosexual problems.”

 

“ _ I do if you’re happy about it!” _

 

“Well as nice as it is— I just wanted to ask your advice about something else.”

 

“ _ Well I’m listening! Always.” _

 

“It’s gonna sound like a dumb question, sorry, but I need to figure this out.”

 

“ _ I doubt it’s stupid.” _

 

“It’s pretty stupid.”

 

“ _ Okay— go.” _

 

Yang took a deep breath, trying to figure out how she’d word this. “Okay— say that you’re in a haunted house. There are like a billion ghosts that all want you to free them, and they all have mysteries to their names. What would you do?”

 

_ “Well I’d ask one of them for help.” _

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“ _ Well if they really wanted to be free, and you’re able to do that. Wouldn’t they reach out?”  _ She paused for a moment, to either form her words or let Yang comprehend them. “ _ Like, if you asked, they’d answer your questions.” _

 

“How would I ask though? What if the only ghost that reached out said some vague riddles before I hypothetically freed her?”

 

“ _ Well first, I’d try to figure out what the riddles meant.” _ Another pause. “ _ And then I’d realize that if that ghost didn’t see the need to explain things, that meant that another ghost would do it.” _

 

“So I find that ghost?”

 

“ _ Yeah! I doubt a ghost would want to stay trapped in a house forever. Must be boring.” _

 

“This whole town is boring.”

 

_ “Well from what you’ve told me, it seems pretty fun.”  _ Yang could hear Ruby smiling from the other end. Could see her adorable tooth-gap and wide, silver eyes. It prompted this warmth to emanate through her body.  _ “Well, I have to go. Weiss just got out of the shower— so it’s my turn. Or Blake will cut ahead of me. Is there anything else you want to talk about?” _

 

“No. Thank you.”

 

“ _ Love you!” _

 

“Love you too.”

 

X

X  


X

 

She needed some air. 

 

Tai insisted that there would be no more Scooby-Dooing until they’d all gotten a good night’s sleep. Or rather, until the next morning. She doubted that anyone would sleep after the painting. The sun hadn’t started to set yet, but the light carried itself in this exhausted manner, heavy and colorful, that could only mean it was no longer afternoon. The forgotten hours of the day.

 

As she walked through the living room, the fire still glowed green. Yang wondered when it’d burn out— and wasn’t sure if she wanted it to. It was the only thing that reassured her that she wasn’t dreaming. 

 

There was this empty feeling that came with walking out of the house and not seeing Mercury fall on the ground with a careless chuckle. The street was empty, and she could see the heat ripple off the pavement in illusionary vapors. As she got closer to them, they skirted farther away— she could never touch them in the way that they wanted her to. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do now, since there was really nowhere for her to go.

 

Yang walked back inside, and out the back door, greeted by a thicket. She’d never walked to the boardwalk in the daytime before, so it was a whole new experience. It was arguably less magical, when the moon didn’t shroud the earth in its glow; what was once a world of deep blues, indigos, and the unknown was now a humid hike. Her sneakers dug into pine needles and oak leaves, and her ears rang with heat. 

 

The ocean didn’t look scared, not in the day. It looked welcoming; waves kneading into the earth, rather than smashing into it. Rolling lazily in tandem with the puffy clouds in the sky. The boardwalk’s wood was a surprising beige color, rather than the wet brown she expected— dry as it escaped the sea spray. 

 

It was almost disappointing, really. That the beauty of the world was stripped away when she saw it with clear eyes. 

 

The light still blinked blue, only visible when she squinted slightly. A figure sat at the end, undistinguishable as the sun was in front of them— but Yang already knew who it was. She practically skipped towards him, but there was no rhythm to her gait, just choppy thuds as her footsteps hammered into the coarse wood. He didn’t turn to look at her, even as she plopped herself next to him.

 

“What happened to going home?”

 

“I don’t consider that place home,” he said simply, eyes still looking at the sea. “This is nicer.”

 

“I like it better at night,” she said honestly. 

 

“Yeah— sometimes it’s fun to look at things like they’re the last moment you’ll have,” he agreed. The waves rolled into the wooden posts holding them up, and Mercury closed his eyes. “But then sometimes it’s better to remember how small you are.”

 

“Why? If you’re small, you don’t matter.”

 

“Isn’t that a relief, though?”

 

“I don’t think so.” Yang scooted closer to him, letting her shoulder touch his. “Thinking that I matter— that I’m the only person left on earth— it makes things more important to me.”

 

“We all die.” 

 

“Yeah but it’s better to pretend you won’t.”

 

“That’s gonna get you killed, Yang.” 

 

“Probably. But it’s funner this way.”

 

“Funner isn’t a word.”

 

“It is to me.” She didn’t want to add that they actually added it to the dictionary a few years prior, because it would ruin the whole moment. He shrugged and as his shoulders moved, his hand loosened, no longer gripping into the wood violently. Instead, it intertwined with hers, and they didn’t say anything else as the sun slipped into its slumber, cradled by a bed of warm clouds, swept into the sea. 

 

X

X  


X

 

They regrouped in the morning. Mercury never actually went home after they met on the boardwalk, instead opting to sneak into Yang’s room by climbing up the house’s skeleton and through the window. She was pretty sure her dad wouldn’t care at this point if Mercury just walked through the door and climbed up the staircase instead, as long as they didn’t make too much noise, but it was pretty cute (and sexy) to see him lightly knock at her window with a smirk, before engulfing her in his musk.

 

They didn’t fuck, not really in the mood when there were ghosts potentially watching and whatnot, but they never seemed to let each other go as they slept in her bed, feet entangled in each other’s limbs and the sheets, minds caught between the waves. 

 

Tai knocked on the door, not bothering to enter, he accepted his defeat at this point. He seemed just as determined to figure this ghost thing out as they were, either because he wanted to get it over with, or because he was genuinely curious like Mercury was. 

 

Mercury didn’t bother bringing a change of clothes, sniffing his sleeve and shrugging when he didn’t smell anything, giving Yang’s bewildered look a coy smile. She rolled her eyes and tore off her shirt, frowning as she struggled to hook her bra. 

 

“Wanna help me out?” She finally gave in, knowing that he wouldn’t make her uncomfortable with her arm, he never did. She didn’t  _ really _ need his help, having plenty of practice over the past few months, but it was a pain in the ass, and it’d be hot if he did it for her.

 

“Sure,” he said casually, walking up behind her and running his hand through her messy hair before twisting it over her shoulder so he could properly clasp the tiny little assholes. She shivered into his touch as he lightly hovered over her spine, shoulder blades contracting with her back as it extended. “Did not expect that reaction, blondie.”

 

He didn’t use that word much, but for some reason it stopped being annoying, morphing into this endearing pet name that he only used when their voices were soft and the world went blank around them, like they were surrounded by a cage of lace and warm light. 

 

“Yeah, you did,” she whispered. He hooked it in place before wrapping his hands around her torso, skin cold against her warmth. 

 

“Maybe.” He moved his fingers lightly across her stomach, barely even touching her skin, but she could feel it. 

 

They were interrupted by a loud bang from downstairs and Tai’s; “ _ We have ghosts to catch!” _

 

Yang rolled her eyes before yelling back, “yeah, okay dad, jeez!”

 

Mercury chuckled and she flicked his nose. “Later. Let’s do this later.”

 

“Hey— I’m not complaining!”

 

She ran her fingers through her hair as they walked downstairs, elastic in her mouth so she could put it up into a messy ponytail. Mercury stuck his hands into his pockets and scanned each chip in the banister, as if he were trying to figure out each one’s story. 

 

“Finally,” Tai said, drinking his coffee on the couch as he read the newspaper. “I thought you two would never come down. This whole ghost thing is your fault.”

 

“Actually,” Mercury corrected, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s the person who killed them’s fault.”

 

Yang elbowed him again and he huffed loudly, as to ask her why she needed to do that. She just smirked, until she remembered Neopolitan’s words. “No— I think we need to start looking for a woman named  _ Salem _ .”

 

Mercury froze and Tai shifted his weight in confusion. “Who now?”

 

“Neo mentioned it to me. She said that ‘Salem’ wouldn’t let the ghosts leave. If we can find out what’s keeping the ghosts here, we can free them.”

 

“How do you suppose we figure that out?” Tai wondered, arms crossed. Mercury didn’t say anything, seemingly in deep thought. Yang thought back to her phone call with Ruby before breathing in, determined.

 

“Well, we ask them.”

 

She snapped her fingers at her father before outstretching her hand, prompting him to retrieve the letter from the coffee table in front of him, putting his mug and newspaper down and standing up to place the paper in the crook of her palm. He didn’t bother to sit back down, so he crossed his arms and looked over her shoulder as she reread it.

 

“So obviously something is up with the pipes,” Yang stated, and both Tai and Mercury gave her this mock-incredulous look. “Well of course it’s obvious— but have any of us actually looked in the pipes?”

 

“So where are these pipes?” Tai asked. “Obviously pipes are everywhere in the house, but what about the ones that he mentions specifically?”

 

Mercury coughed a bit to call their attention to him. “Well you guys are from Arizona so your houses are probably a bit different, but all these houses that were all built around the same time have their boilers in a specific place; in the basement.”

 

His voice wavered with the last few words, and Yang coughed slightly, prompting Tai to look between the two, confused— before he also looked between the lines. “Did you two seriously have sex in the basement?” 

 

“I’m going to get back to you on that, Mr. Xiao Long,” Mercury mumbled, and Tai groaned in exasperation. 

 

“You know what? Let’s just go to the boiler, and check out the pipes. Okay? Okay.” He burst past them and began marching down the stairs to the basement, flicking the light on, before realizing that it didn’t even work. “And in the dark too?” he mumbled. 

 

Yang looked to Mercury as stoically as she could, but failed, releasing a plethora of giggles into the air, Mercury smirked and motioned to the basement in a ‘ladies first’ kind of way, only chuckling when she jokingly punched his shoulder. 

 

She grabbed his hand as they walked down the stairs, instead of pulling out her phone to use the flashlight. He really hated the basement, for some reason. When she asked him about it a few days prior, he brushed her off at first, but eventually gave in. 

 

_ “I have bad experiences with basements,” he explained.  _

 

_ “Like what?” _

 

_ “My dad used to lock me up there if I was too much of a little shit.” He said honestly, and that was the end of it.  _

 

She knew that Mercury had a bad home life, she could tell from the way he talked about his family. The way he dreaded going home. That he needed a distraction just as much as she did. So Yang didn’t mention it, purposely at least, unless it was absolutely necessary. He didn’t need her pity or her questions. She was fine with boardwalks and ghosts, if that was what he wanted. 

 

He squeezed her hand back, as tightly as he could; either to thank her, or to use her as his own compass in a dark world that he knew all too well. 

 

The basement was as creepy as ever. Luckily, once they reached the latter half of the stairs, they could flick on a dim light that gave everything an even distribution of matte yellowish green. It smelled like something that Yang couldn’t quite put her finger on, an echo that could’ve been distinguishable years prior, but now faded into a spine chilling damp that seeped between her joints. Every step she took shook the ground she walked on, either an unmistakable creak, or a sharp tap. The scariest moments were when she stepped down and there was no sound at all, and it took her a moment to gather her thoughts enough to realize that the floor hadn’t fallen out beneath her. 

 

The room was relatively empty, save for some shelves and boxes collecting dust. Every once in awhile, though, they’d pass something that would send her shuffling closer into Mercury, who was just as tense as ever. A crib knocked on its side, space-mobile upside-down, but somehow still spinning. A random mannequin, who’s only facial features were sloppily drawn on in magic marker; shaky smile and blank eyes who’s eyelashes were evenly spaced and straight as they surrounded it. A rust collecting wheelchair, decorated with dents and wear— a few faded stickers on the armrests. 

 

Tai looked back at his daughter, lips tight. “Let’s get this over with, okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Mercury said, voice stiff as he led Yang’s eyes away from the wheelchair. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to fuck in the basement.” 

 

“You can’t tell me it wasn’t hot,” she argued weakly. 

 

“I’m not saying that at all— I’m just saying that we shouldn’t do it again.”

 

“Debatable.”

 

“ _ So, _ where’s the boiler?” Tai asked, motioning to the room before his eyes met Mercury’s. He got a nod in reply, as Mercury tore away from Yang reluctantly to approach a corner door. 

 

“In here,” he said, tearing it open to reveal a bulky generator and water tank that looked like they’d been installed in the seventies— vibrating as it tried it’s very best. A rat chewed at some hardwood before freezing like a deer in the headlights as its eyes met Mercury’s, scurrying off when he took a step forward. Tai walked next to him, looking the walls up and down, and Yang followed suit. 

 

“Don’t see much,” Yang said, disappointed. Tai hummed in affirmation, and tried to look behind the machine, but failing miserably. 

 

Mercury’s eyes narrowed before he dropped to the floor, face turned parallel to the ground as he looked underneath the mess of pipes and electrical boxes. His fingers ran between pieces of splintery wood, stopping when one jiggled slightly. “Bingo.” 

 

He pried the board off of it’s nails easily, as the metal holding it down was so rusty that it crumbled away like sand. He let it drop to the ground next to him as he looked at the gaping hole he just made, motioning for Tai and Yang to look. “Bam, literally in the pipes,” he boasted, aiming his phone’s flashlight into the hole, where pipes bent around five or six sealed boxes. “Wanna help me out?”

 

Mercury shoved his arms down into the hole, managing to pull one of the boxes out, and Tai followed in getting the next one. Yang didn’t bother, instead joining her boyfriend in opening his find. Rather than treating it normally, she punched it, sighing happily as it broke open cleanly. Her satisfaction was replaced with bafflement as she saw the contents. Bags of white powder— clearly drugs. 

 

“Holy shit,” she whispered, before looking at her father, who seemed to find the same thing in his box. “There are three more boxes down there.”

 

She tore another board off its hinges, and then another, making a big enough hole to step in and grab the next box as best she could. Mercury took it off her hand and they did the same thing with the next two. She grabbed his hand and allowed him to pull her back up, before they worked to open all the new boxes. And all of them were the same. Bags and bags of cocaine. 

 

“Well, I guess Roman Torchwick was definitely a drug dealer.” Mercury stated. 

 

“Less of a dealer, more of a warehouse. Christ, what are we doing?” Tai massaged his temple with his thumb and index finger. 

 

“Wait,” Yang said, in the middle of unloading one of the boxes. “Look here.” 

 

She pulled a small black book out of the box, after finding it nestled between bags of cocaine, brushing dust (or whatever it was) off the cover by flipping it back and forth and enjoying the way the weight wiggled with the paper. She flipped the book open, finding familiar handwriting decorating the pages. 

 

_Rorz Znrgloz_ _3 ounces_ _$24,000_

_Xziwrm Drmxsvhgvi_ _½ ounce_ _$400_

 

“It looks like Torchwick’s accounting book. The names are all scrambled, though.” She kept flipping. “Makes sense, since people want anonymity or something.” She paused as she reached maybe the 30th page, eyes widening as she scanned it. 

 

_ Xrmwvi Uzoo _

_ Xrmwvi Uzoo _

_ Xrmwvi Uzoo _

_ Xrmwvi Uzoo _

 

There were pages of that name,  _ Xrmwvi Uzoo,  _ with no orders of drugs or prices next to them. Just that name, as if it were literally off the books, or something else. Mercury plopped down next to her and scanned it before biting his lips. “Now that is weird. Looks like a backwards code.”

 

“A what?”

 

“Like where letters are the opposite? A would be Z, B-Y, etcetera.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Keep flipping, we can translate that later.” 

 

So she did, skipping some pages because she knew there wouldn’t be much of anything different. Eventually she reached the latter quarter of the book where things began to change. For one, she noticed actual words, not any backwards code. Small diary-like entries that mirrored the one she found in the china cabinet decorated the pages. “Here we go,” she said lightly, licking her thumb to turn the page as she scanned the entries. Knowing that she’d read them more in depth later, she didn’t dive in too deeply, just reading random entries as they caught her eye. 

 

_ April Thirteenth, 1965 _

_ Dear, _

_ Found it today, still safe in the pipes. Anyways, the place isn’t gone yet, maybe we can burn it all the way next time.  _

 

“This is almost a year after they died,” she said, after reading it outloud. “He must be talking about the drugs. Did they burn the house themselves?” 

 

Mercury shrugged, turning the page for her. She read the next one.

 

_ June Fourth, 1969 _

_ Dear, _

_ Longing for ice cream as of late. Larger issues present themselves, yes, but I can’t help but miss the little things.  _

 

“Useless, but funny,” she said. “His wife’s name was literally a type of ice cream, haha.”

 

Tai chuckled and shook his head. “Keep going, Yang.” She did. 

 

_ January 9th, 1997 _

_ Dear, _

_ I’m jealous of him. Seems like all he does is steal everyone away. Neo wants to follow him, too. Opening doors; breaking rules. The mistress will probably blow a fuse. WHO would’ve thought that the great Roman Torchwick would stoop so low. She wants to punish him, but she can’t.  _

 

“Who’s  _ he? _ ” Yang asked.

 

Mercury shrugged halfheartedly. “I think we should focus more on the ‘mistress.’ Must be Salem, or whoever.”

 

“Right.”

 

_ January 30th, 2001 _

_ Dear, _

_ Hazel is her favorite, I swear. Each person that looks to buy the place always ends up dead.  _

 

“Hazel?” Yang asked. “Another ghost?”

 

“Makes sense— he was a big name lawyer or something. Hazel Rainhart.” Mercury rambled, before coming to his conclusion. “He disappeared in 1934.”

 

“You sure know a lot about this town,” Tai inquired incredulously. 

 

“Yeah.” Mercury rolled his eyes. “I live in it. There’s not much to do projects on in history class, unless you want to talk about how the place was founded.”

 

“How’s that?” Yang asked. 

 

“Some woman fled here from the witch trials and somehow made a town out of it.”

 

“I mean, that’s kind of cool,” Yang reasoned.

 

“Yeah, but everybody does projects on that in 4th grade. You start running out of things around 7th.”

 

“Still,” she said. “Cool origin story.”

 

“Isn’t it?” He deadpanned. Tai tapped his foot impatiently and Yang flipped through the pages until a more recent chapter.

 

_ June 10th 2017 _

_ Stupid kid keeps making noise outside. Every day. Every goddamn day. Minus that, I don’t want to leave. Salem doesn’t hurt the ones that obey. _

 

She looked at Mercury, trying not to laugh. “He’s talking about you.”

 

“He’s dead, but an asshole,” he commented offhandedly. “Good to know.”

 

“You two are ignoring the fact that it directly mentions Salem,” Tai sighed, pointing to the last sentence. “We already knew that Mercury was annoying.”

 

“That’s called rude in some languages,” Mercury muttered. 

 

“I know,” Tai smiled condescendingly. “I speak all of them.”

 

“We get it,” Yang called out, done with their banter, as entertaining as it was. “You two hate each other. Can we focus on this?”

 

Yang continued to read random entries. Most of them were just pretentious complaints, like the ice cream one, or the one about Mercury’s skating outside. Some of them were blacked out with a thick marker, because this house lived the cliche. Eventually she reached the last few pages, and read the most recent entries. 

 

_ June, 2018 _

_ Dear, _

_ Lost my sense of time, days blend together now. Outside there are noises, I guess we have some more victims. Or rather, “guests." Keep making that mistake— I hope they leave soon. _

 

_ June, 2018 _

_ Dear, _

_ Bought Pepsi— that’s what they did. Every day it’s like she’s getting farther and farther from it. Hell, I’m glad, maybe he’ll never get through. I hope Neo is rotting in hell right now, for leaving without the rest of us. Nobody liked her anyways, not after she changed. Damn kid keeps finding my shit, maybe they won’t look downstairs.  _

 

_ June, 2018 _

_ Yellow. Orange. Ultraviolet.  _

 

She looked up from the last entry, if the previous one had anything to say, it was that this last one was written that very day. Within hours. The colors meant nothing to her. “You think they’re a code?”

 

Tai hummed, eyes scanning the page. “He sure seems to like them, I wouldn’t be surprised.” 

 

Mercury’s breath hitched in his throat. “A shitty fucking code— he’s using the first letters of each sentence— he knew we’d find it. The ink is smudging under your thumb.” And it was, the last few entries weren’t even dried yet, as if just written before she looked at it. The handwriting was different, she noticed now, more frantic, as if desperately trying to tell them something. 

 

She read each letter out loud, sounding each word slowly as she skipped over annoyingly sassy words. “L-O-O-K; look.”

 

The room became increasingly cold as she continued, inciting her to move closer to Mercury, who read along with her. 

 

“B-E-H-I-N… Behind. Look behind.”

 

She felt a cold breath at her neck, wet and smelling just like what she couldn’t distinguish before. Like burning flesh. Cold, burning, flesh. She read faster now, and the breath got stronger, she knew what it would say, but couldn’t stop reading. 

 

“Y-O-U. Look behind you.”

 

She turned around, letting the book drop lightly to the floor, and screamed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I got the creepy down pact....   
> CommentCOmment
> 
> Thanks mah sweet betas


	5. The Man in the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Salem needs to be in the house when it falls. As long as she’s alive, the spell continues.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was by far the hardest to write because it was pure explanations without explanations.  
> I don't have 6 finished yet, sorry, so we'll have to wait a few days for me to get that done. Same with 7. 
> 
> But yeah it's so fun writing this, you have no clue! Please comment, because I want to know if  
> a) i need to improve  
> b) if y'all like what I'm putting out  
> c) if i should keep going  
> d) if anyone is actually reading it
> 
> So yeah, enjoy!

**V**

_The Man in the Mirror_

 

She didn’t lock eyes with it— because she couldn’t. The thing had no discernable features, and Yang could only guess that it used to be human from its anthropomorphic shape. It couldn’t stand straight on its legs, spine bending and knees collapsing into an animalistic stance. Calcined cracks maneuvered over raw, skinless flesh— as its limbs twitched, as it rotated its neck to stare at her without eyes, the char chafed against itself in loud, dry clicks. After dealing with the fragile Neopolitan and the whiny Roman, she’d let her guard down. Not that it could’ve prepared her for this monster she saw now. 

 

They’d all turned towards it at the same time, but while Yang screamed and scrambled away, and Tai went to grab a random piece of broken furniture as a weapon, Mercury froze. The beast’s fingernails didn’t hesitate to dig into his arms as it pinned him down; its slit-like mouth parting to release a low hiss, revealing rows of crooked, black teeth. Even as Yang watched from a few feet away, she could smell the rot that accompanied the sound, an olfactory nightmare. 

 

Mercury gritted his teeth, arms taught as he pushed against the hold, legs scrambling for leverage and an opening. Yang moved to grapple the thing and push it off of him, but her legs were completely frozen, buckling underneath her. She couldn’t hear the ghost’s growls, or Mercury’s grunts, or her dad’s panicking. The only thing she heard was her ragged breathing, scratching in her chest as she tried to do anything. She’d seen scary movies before, had dealt with her fair share of terrifying events— but it was like this creature was an embodiment of fear. 

 

Tai ran towards them with a broken piece of crib held over his shoulder, swinging violently to hit the creature in the skull. His attempts, however, were for naught, as he went flying into a back wall, and it dug it’s charcoal claws further into Mercury’s shoulders. 

 

Suddenly it was like Yang was on autopilot; either because the adrenaline finally caught up with her, or because she was fucking angry. Maybe both. Her hand found itself wrapped around a rusty metal pipe that had long since been removed from the boiler, tossed aside under some random chairs. Rather than emulating her father’s previously failed attack, she slid it across the floor like this whole thing was just an air hockey game. It nudged against Mercury’s ribs, gently, and he released his defense against the ghost to grab it. 

 

He only had seconds to stab it, or the thing would’ve ripped his face off. The pipe plunged into the thing’s stomach, sending it recoiling, its hands fumbling to rip it out. Mercury scrambled away, legs pushing against the ground as he moved without getting up. Eventually he reached a safe distance, and allowed Tai to pull him up onto his feet. The ghost didn’t seem to have broken through the skin, thanks to Mercury’s thick jean jacket— but he rubbed at his arms that were likely bruised. 

 

“That’s one douchebag of a ghost,” he grunted, rotating his shoulders and wincing. 

 

“Are you okay?” Yang called, running towards him. 

 

“That’s debatable,” he mumbled before clicking his tongue and pushing Yang behind her father as the ghost leapt at her. It hadn’t managed to remove the pipe, so the thing just lolled to the side as its host moved sporadically. “Christ— it won’t quit, will it?”

 

“Obviously not.” Tai broke another beam off of the crib, and Mercury bit his lip before kicking the ominous wheelchair aside and in front of the ghost, prompting it to trip and land into the pipe already impaling it. “Nice one.” 

 

“Yeah of course it is, it’s me.” 

 

“Do you get off on being an asshole?” Tai groaned, not really knowing what to do with the piece of wood in his hands, but grabbing another one anyways. Mercury just shrugged in response, before Yang elbowed him again. 

 

“You realize that we are fighting a ghost right now, that just tried to kill us. Is still trying to kill us?” Yang mumbled exasperatedly, not even addressing the subjects of her vent because she knew it was no use. She looked at the wood in her dad’s hands, and furrowed her brow. “Do either of you have a lighter or matches or something?” 

 

“Why?” Mercury asked, before a look of realization dawned on his face. “Oh— well, no I don’t.” Tai shook his head, patting empty pockets. “What’s the point of dad shorts if you don’t use them! It’s like carrying a gun around but it doesn’t hold bullets. Or furnishing your house with bulletproof glass because you like the way that the light reflects off of it.”

 

“Ok so both of you are completely useless. Got it.” 

 

As the creature convulsed on the floor, the shadows in the room seemed to part and flow around it, rippling outward as if propelled by another world’s gravity. The darkness wasn’t tangible, however, merely reflecting light without a source. Just like Neopolitan’s reality. Yang grit her teeth violently, and her hair moved like fire around her even though there was no wind. 

 

“Why are you attacking us? We want to free you!” She screamed, fingernails digging into her palm. Beads of blood collected on the floor, dripping from her clenched fist. The ghost tilted it’s head, neck clicking as it twisted in an unnatural way; exposing pieces of yellowing bone underneath, through each raw and cracking burn. 

 

It lunged in her direction, limbs flapping behind it as if it were completely built out of joints, with nothing in between. She backed up as fast as she could, but her head slammed against the wall behind her, and she was cornered. Cold, wet, breath. 

 

It happened in a flash; one second, she stared at an eyeless face, a patch of flaking muscle— the next, she stared at the room beyond it. She saw her Uncle Qrow through a wide gaping bullet hole, gun tight in his hand as he stood at the top of the stairs. The bullet bounced off the wall above her, and onto the ground next to her, clattering a few times before rolling to a halt. The metal had been crushed after hitting the concrete, but still showed slight traces of the ghost’s bodily fluids.    
  


“Let’s  _ go _ ,” he insisted, as the ghost screamed and clutched its forehead in agony, before shattering into the shadows. “I only bought us a few minutes.”

 

Mercury swallowed before trudging up the stairs behind him, before Yang followed suit, if not hesitantly. Tai’s mouth hung open in bewilderment, as he looked between his friend and the place where the ghost had just stood over his daughter. 

 

“Qrow, what the hell are you doing here? Why did you—” Tai was cut off by his friend’s gaze, looking back at him as he opened the door. They pooled back into the living room, but their hearts still beat with fervor, unable to shake themselves of their encounter.

 

“You might want to sit down for this, okay?” 

 

Yang didn’t say anything, looking to Mercury for some sort of explanation. He just shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and collapsing into one of the couches. His eyes narrowed as he looked up at Qrow. She realized then that she didn’t quite know why her uncle hated Mercury so much; she’d never even seen them in the same room together. 

 

As Tai sat down, he looked pointedly at Qrow for an explanation, who lay the gun onto the coffee table next to the newspaper and mug. It settled there with a dull noise, as soft as metal could get on glass. He whipped out his flask, chugging whiskey with fervor, as if his voice was an engine and his vice was its fuel. Mercury looked away, brow furrowing. 

 

“So, I guess there’s no point in discrecion,” Qrow muttered, wiping amber liquid off of his upper lip. “So this house is haunted.”

 

“Yeah, I gathered,” Tai deadpanned. “You know, from the ghost that just tried to rip Mercury’s face off. Not that I’m complaining.”

 

“Okay then, seeing as you’re so knowledgeable, what  _ don’t _ you know?” 

 

Contrary to Yang’s expectations, none of them said anything.She didn’t know where to start, and her dad was at a loss for words. It made sense; it’s easy to recall answers, but questions were in a league of their own. Surprisingly, it was Mercury who started it off. He didn’t seem like one particularly pressed for time or answers. 

 

“How do we free the ghosts?” He spoke slowly; calculated. “We burned a picture and that seemed to work. What’s keeping them here?” 

 

“There’s a complicated answer to that,” Qrow scoffed. “I don’t know if you’ll comprehend it.”

 

“Says the cop too incompetent to actually do his job.”

 

Yang expected Qrow to lash out at him— as chill as he was, he didn’t have the patience to deal with a sassy teenage asshole, forever stuck in his emo phase. However, he just placed the flask next to the gun on the table, it shook a bit, not used to standing on its own. “The ghosts are trapped by Salem— Salem Fall.”

 

“That name again,” Yang whispered. “Fall.”

 

“Is that why Raven wants to stab Cinder with her own heels?” Tai asked, face unreadable as he attempted to absorb all this information. 

 

“Something like that,” Qrow offered, voice raising slightly before returning to its original growl. 

 

“Why don’t you tell me— tell us why you even know about this. How do you even know about this?” Tai prompted, obviously trying to get away from vague answers. Not that he ever would. 

 

“You know about the fire in ‘94, right? How everything changed around here after that?” Qrow asked steadily, only continuing after Yang and Tai nodded, he ignored Mercury. As if he didn’t also owe him an explanation. “I was assigned the case before the FBI stepped in; Raven too. It wasn’t long before we could put all the pieces together.”

 

“And those pieces are…?” Qrow didn’t say anything, even under the weight of his niece’s violet stare. It was like he knew what he wanted to say, but not what he should say. Yang sighed, disappointed, if not frustrated. “Where’s mo— I mean Raven. Where’s Raven?” 

 

“She’s right here.” And there Raven stood, holding a tray of mugs, steaming with herbal glory. She walked out from the kitchen and set the tray onto the coffee table, scoffing as it brushed against her brother’s flask. Yang gulped, not really knowing what to say. “I’m sure I can explain it much better than my little brother can.”

 

Yang noticed then that Mercury had left the room, walking to the kitchen, presumably for his own drink of choice. He was obviously uncomfortable around the Branwen twins— she didn’t know  _ why _ . He returned with Pepsi, predictably, and sat across from Raven. She sipped her tea slowly, as if she weren’t drinking any at all, only going through the motions, before speaking. 

 

“Salem Fall is easier recounted as Mistrala Grimm.” 

 

While Tai and Yang showed no reaction, as the name meant virtually nothing to them, Mercury’s eyebrows raised slightly. “The woman who founded Mistral? Guess the whole ‘Salem’ thing makes sense then.” 

 

“She changed her surname to Fall, for some reason. Maybe just because.” Another sip. “You can find her journals in the library, hidden between children’s books.” 

 

“Yeah— I remember those,” Mercury recounted, voice low, though he spoke up. “Emerald read them religiously.”

 

“Emerald?” Yang tilted her head slightly, hair shifting as she turned to look at him questioningly. “Who’s that?”

 

“My friend.” He didn’t look like he was going to say anything after that, until he did. “She’s in Boston for the summer for some internship or something.” 

 

“Oh.” And then, “what did the journals say?” 

 

Raven made a small sweeping gesture, offering Mercury the floor. Qrow nodded silently. He scratched at the back of his neck, something he did when he was anxious, Yang noticed. “She used old, big words; I always had trouble reading them. But this bitch was obsessed with the idea of immortality. She’d fill pages and pages with just her fear about death. It was hella creepy.”

 

“We think that the deaths have something to do with that.” Raven concluded. Another sip. 

 

“What— was she like an actual witch or something?” Tai said, ever the voice of reason. 

 

“I mean she came from the literal witch trials,” Yang countered.

 

“Yeah but those were all fake or something,” Tai reasoned.

 

_ “Well real witches wouldn’t get caught.”  _

 

They all turned towards the voice. It was low and melodious, riding a wave of condescension into a beach of propriety, belonging to an angular man. A very angular man. His legs were stilts underneath black slacks, perfectly ironed and geometric. Shoes; sharp triangles, perfectly spaced and shining under the faux candlelight. His cheekbones stabbed into tight lips, hidden underneath a lighting-resemblant moustache. The oddest thing about him, was where he stood. Or at least, where he didn’t. 

 

Beside the fireplace, mounted on the wall, was a large, gilded mirror. It looked old enough to have come from the twenties, reflective surface wearing away in some places to reveal a scale-like aging. Between the flaky weathering stood, evidently behind the couch where Yang currently sat. However, as she turned, she could only see the wall behind her, where the fish sculptures had once been mounted. Nails and wires poked out of chipped, probably lead paint— but the man was nowhere to be found. 

 

“ _ I do apologize for my inability to properly introduce myself, _ ” the man said. “ _ But I felt as if you were severely lacking in well… information. _ ”

 

“Who the fuck are you?” Tai shouted, grabbing the gun and aiming it directly at the man in the mirror. Qrow lowered the weapon by gently pushing it downwards, shaking his head.

 

“You think a gun will do anything?” 

 

“ _ He’s right you know— you shouldn’t bother. _ ” He smiled, revealing perfectly straight rows of teeth, though his upper lip was shrouded in that moustache, so it felt scarily uncanny instead of friendly. “ _ I must say, I am surprised that you managed to get this far. Bravo, brava. Whichever.”  _ He clapped his hands together slowly. 

 

Mercury rolled his eyes. “Are all ghosts assholes?”

 

“ _ Well. _ ” The ghost smirked, pacing right in front of him— at least, within the reflection. Mercury still flinched away, though, as if he could feel the man’s breath on his cheeks. “ _ I doubt I’m at  _ your _ level.” _

 

“Yeah ok, Mr. Xiao Long? You can shoot him now.”

 

“Who are you?” Yang pushed, looking to the empty space where she knew he stood. “What do you want?” 

 

“ _ My name is Arthur Watts. I’d say it was a pleasure, but none of you are very interesting.”  _ Yang clenched her fist, only held back by her mother’s stern gaze. Another sip. “ _ Oh well, there’s no use in complaining. Things have become rather dire around here, especially since you released that annoyance, Neopolitan.” _

 

“What about that…  _ thing _ in the basement?” Tai asked. “That seems like more of an annoyance.”

 

“ _ It keeps quiet unless stimulated.” _ His eyes raked over Yang and Mercury. “ _ You two aren’t very subtle, you know.” _

 

Yang couldn’t hold back the flush that crawled up her neck, or the small squeak that escaped her throat. Mercury let out an exhale fast enough to let out a small noise, before scratching the back of his neck again. 

 

“ _ If you must know, that was our dear Grimm.”  _ He seemed finished, but spoke again as Tai’s mouth opened. “ _ Yes, that name  _ does  _ sound familiar. Yes it  _ is _ based on our captor’s maiden name.”  _ Tai’s mouth closed. 

 

Qrow nodded at Watt’s words. “A Grimm— a vengeful spirit, yes?”

 

_ “Someone’s been listening to the waves, I see. _ ” He coughed lightly into his hand before straightening his tie. 

 

“A vengeful spirit? Wouldn’t all of you be vengeful— since you’re trapped here?” 

 

_ “She needs us human,”  _ he explained. “ _ Dead, yes, but human. _ ”

 

“Why not that thing?” 

 

_ “He was an aftereffect. Does not share Her blood.”  _ He began to walk around the room, as if propelled by a graceful waltz that only he could hear. His footsteps were in tandem with a time signature that no one could follow, and his eyes moved carefully around the room to meet each of theirs in the mirror. “ _ It’s almost mercy that he cannot see what he’s become. _ ”

 

“A monster,” Tai muttered. 

 

Watts shook his head. “ _ He’d always been a monster.” _

 

“Why can’t we see you here?” Yang waved to where she thought he was. She shivered, remembering the beast. Cold, burning flesh. “We could see the Grimm perfectly fine. We could feel it.” 

 

“ _ Well I wouldn’t look any different. We look as we died.” _ The orange light moved over each bone in his face as he paced. “ _ It’s barbaric, really. _ ”

 

“That’s one word to describe it,” Mercury mumbled. 

 

“ _ All of that aside, _ ” he finally stopped pacing. “ _ Because of your stunt with Neo, Salem has caught onto us. Our plan.” _

 

“What plan?” Tai asked. 

 

That was when Raven took her final sip, placing the teacup onto the table. She hadn’t spoken the entire time, eyes looking into a space that didn’t exist as she thought everything over. “You’re going to destroy the house.”

 

The room went still. At least, the one outside of the mirror. Mercury crossed his arms, looking at the ground, and Yang’s hand flew towards her mouth slightly, though only getting to her chest before she regained control. Tai stopped breathing. Qrow sighed silently. Watts clapped his hands together slowly, again, humming in mock-content. “ _ How observant of you. _ ”

 

“Hasn’t the house burned down… like three times already?” Yang pondered. 

 

“ _ We can’t free ourselves. We can’t be freed by anyone who was alive for a previous fire. That’s why we need you, Ms. Xiao Long.” _ Watts explained.

 

“So all the other fires,” Mercury started, not moving from his slouch, though his eyes stared holes into the mirror. “They were trial and error.”

 

“ _ Exactly,”  _ Watts said calmly, if not sarcastically. “ _ It wasn’t until you, my dear,” _ he gestured to Yang vaguely. “ _ Freed Neopolitan and led us to the conclusion that you can’t have been born when a Fall died.” _

 

Yang nodded before cracking her knuckles into the sofa. “Then let’s do it! Let’s burn the house down.”

 

Mercury chuckled, sitting up to properly make eye-contact with her. She stuck her tongue out and he smirked, before their flirty atmosphere was effectively ruined by the three parental figures and mirror-ghost looking between them exasperatedly.

 

Raven sighed, tapping her fingers against her thigh contemplatively. “I doubt it’s that simple.”

 

“ _ Salem needs to be in the house when it falls. As long as she’s alive, the spell continues.” _

 

Qrow groaned, “of course she does.” 

 

“ _ My mother has always been a tricky one.” _

 

Wait— mother? Yang didn’t need to express her confusion verbally, as her tensed shoulders and wide eyes proved a good enough prompt for Watts to laugh maniacally. His laugh sounded inherently villainous, but not because he was attempting to be sinister. It felt like a laugh he’d been born with, and grew to embrace. 

 

_ “I  _ am  _ a Fall, after all.” _

 

“So you must’ve died in 1934, then.” Tai gestured to the air in front of him, as if offering his statement up to the wolves for judgement. 

 

“ _ No, t’was my niece, then. My sister and I were the first of Her victims.”  _ He chuckled, as if looking back on a fond memory, rather than his own death.  _ “Now I do have to get going. You very much angered the Grimm downstairs. He just won’t shut up. _ ” 

 

And Arthur Watts was gone.

 

 

X

X

X

 

They didn’t see him again, not within the next few hours, anyways. And they concluded that they were on their own until then. It was a simple mission, really. Yang just needed to burn the house down, while an assumedly immortal witch was inside. An immortal witch that they had yet to locate. Both Qrow and Mercury, however, refused to even speak about the entire situation, focused on whatever vendettas they held towards one another. 

 

Raven had made more tea, even though she was the only one interested in drinking it in the first place, and sat stoically next to her daughter, who watched the dirty looks pass between her Uncle and boyfriend awkwardly. 

 

“I don’t know why he hates him,” Yang huffed. “I know Mercury’s an ass, but so is everyone. So is Uncle Qrow.” 

 

Another sip. “It’s not that he hates Mercury. Mercury hates him, but I don’t think it applies the other way around.” She motioned towards the coffee table, complete with its gun, newspaper, and three cups of tea. Yang shook her head politely. “Qrow made a mistake, an error, towards Mercury. He’s always been a manipulative kid. He probably thinks that he’s going to break your heart to get back at him.”

 

“What’d he do?” Yang asked, before her attention was grabbed by a loud slam. Mercury had thrown the can of Pepsi onto the floor, allowing the sticky brown liquid to permeate into the oriental rug. He stepped forwards, foot landing strongly and sending drops of the soda into the air with the splash.

 

“Don’t even fucking talk to me about what  _ I  _ should be doing!” He spat. Qrow looked unsure of whether to look angry or defeated. “That ship sailed long ago. I shouldn’t  _ be here _ right now. I should be long gone, if it weren’t for you.” 

 

“There was no evidence against—” 

 

“Of course there is. You saw it every goddamn day.” He let out a ragged breath. “I guess you still do. And you haven’t done shit. Don’t tell me what to do.” 

 

He ran out through the kitchen, slamming the door so hard that the lights flickered slightly; that the flask toppled over onto the coffee table, jostling the lid just enough to send the whisky splashing into the puddle of Pepsi. Yang moved to follow him, but Raven shook her head. “Let him go. He’ll come back.”

 

“What happened?” Yang pressed, looking at Qrow. Her dad looked both curious and worried, but didn’t say anything, as the sentiments were cancelled out. “Tell me what happened.”

 

Qrow sighed, running his temple. “He called the cops, when things got really bad at home. We weren’t able to get a warrant, or even remove him from the house. He’s made my life a living hell since then.”

 

“Understandably so.” Another sip. “Though he is quite annoying about it.”

 

“Why would you just ignore that?” Yang choked on her words, but continued. “He told me about his dad, a bit. Why wouldn’t you get him out of there?” 

 

“We’re trying.” Qrow insisted, before his voice dropped. “We have been.” 

 

“Well obviously it doesn’t work.” 

 

She left the back door open.

 

 

X

X

X

 

She didn’t need to traverse the lands towards the boardwalk to find him. He seemed perfectly content with the street outside the house, as he angrily attempted to perfect that one trick. His breathing was violent and his eyes were panicked. He fell, not bothering to even catch himself, and his eyes became parallel to the sky. He picked one cloud, which looked like a wispy afterthought, left behind by something far more important. He picked one cloud, and followed it with conflicted irises as it lumbered towards the horizon.  

 

“I can’t seem to get it right,” he said, voice cracking slightly. She could only assume that he meant the trick. “I’ve been trying and trying, but I just can’t.”

 

“Maybe you’re scared to,” she said softly. “Scared to get it right, I mean.”

 

“I can’t imagine why.”

 

Yang held her hand out, casting a shadow over his cheeks, so he could no longer see the sky that troubled him. He limply took her palm in his, and she pulled him onto his feet. It was hard, with one arm, and she almost lost her balance, but he caught her in his own momentum. His skin was cold against hers, and she craved it. 

 

“They told me about everything, you know.” She forced it out hesitantly. Mercury didn’t look at her, he couldn’t.

 

“I doubt it.” He put his foot on top of the board, rolling it back and forth, but not actually riding it fully.

 

“You didn’t seem to hate him when dad mentioned him earlier.”

 

“I don’t hate him,” Mercury replied, fingers itching to hold something. “Sometimes he just defends himself for something that was his fault.”

 

“Why don’t you just run away?”

 

“Why  _ don’t  _ I just run away?” He repeated, though changing the inflections of each word. “Good question.” 

 

He sat on the curb, letting his board fall by his feet and roll a few meters away. Yang didn’t really know what to do other than follow him, before letting her head rest against his shoulder. She could see underneath his shirt, through the collar. Faded fingerprints; bruises embedded into his neck. 

 

“I can’t believe we’re burning this place to the ground.” Yang said, shifting to an inarguably more comfortable topic. She sized up the house, no longer hating it as much as she did upon her initial arrival. She remembered the boardwalk, the Pepsi, the basement sex. “You think we’ll get in trouble?”

 

“We have the only real cop in town and a lawyer on our side, Yang,” he chuckled. “I think we’re good.”

 

“What did you think of Watts?” Yang asked suddenly. “You think he’s telling the truth?”

 

“About what?” 

 

“Everything.” She lifted her head, but let her hand entwine with his, as if to remind him she was still there. “It feels almost like he’s hiding things. Who is Salem, anyways? Does Cinder Fall have anything to do with it?”

 

He looked to her with a confused expression. “Of course she does. Why are you both surprised by it?” 

 

“Well, because she owns the house? She’s probably working for Salem or whoever.” Yang couldn’t forget those hollow, golden eyes. The way she tapped her fingernails against her clipboard. “Plus she’s a Fall— it’s like she knows she’s gonna die next or something. That’s why she’s always renting it out.”

 

Mercury looked at her— like really, really looked at her. His face was frozen in bewilderment, as if she was missing such a vital piece of the puzzle, that the picture wasn’t even recognizable. “Wait, you don’t know?” 

 

“Know what?”

 

“Holy shit, Yang— you realize that Cinder Fall died in 1934, right?” 

 

 

X

X

X

 

They returned to the living room quickly after that. The tension hadn’t settled— Mercury bristled under Qrow’s furrowed brow, and Tai looked as confused as ever. However, they couldn’t really let this whole thing just rest. 

 

“So the two of you didn’t know about Cinder Fall?” Qrow asked, hand to his temple. “I thought you would’ve figured out the names of the other Falls— seeing as you managed to find five boxes of cocaine and meet at least three ghosts already.”

“No– well I was going to look into them one at a time, you know?” Yang defended, before she muttered, “now that we’re going to free them all at the same time, I guess that makes less sense.” 

 

Tai sighed before hoisting himself out of the reading chair he sat in. “So, she’s a ghost? Why can we see her in the way that we couldn’t see Watts or Neopolitan?”

 

“Because that’s not Cinder Fall,” Raven concluded, lifting the teacup to her lips.

 

“Who is it then?” Tai asked. He didn’t even seem to need the answer, as a look crossed over his face. As the answer dawned on him. 

 

“Salem.”

 

Another sip. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a playlist for this fic on spotify that I'll post next chapter because I'm still adding stuff. And some art that I'll post at the end. Who knows. 
> 
> C o m me nt?


	6. The Red Dress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok this chapter was getting long so I'm splitting it up. There will be 8 chapters in this story now. :D
> 
> IF THERE IS ANY CHAPTER TO WRITE A LONG COMMENT ON.  
> IT IS THIS ONE  
> THIS TOOK ME SO MUCH TIME TO WRITE HO LEE SHE AT
> 
> anyways. Enjoy :D

**VI**

_The Red Dress_

 

**1933**

 

She had her best dress on. Red satin waterfalled over her collarbones, and hovered above her thighs as she moved with the timbre of a fairy’s wings. Golden eyes blinked back at themselves as she stared into her own reflection, marveling at each curve or patch of exposed skin. She’d grown her hair out since the last time she’d seen her grandmother. But, then again, she’d grown everything out. The fabric was tighter around her stomach than everywhere else. She ignored it. 

 

It took a great deal of effort to rip her gaze away from the mirror, forcing each calculated step to the door: one leg crossing over the other as she rotated her hips like she would the pedals of a bicycle. 

 

Cinder Fall.

 

She took pride in that name: Fall. The snap of dry wind and the richness of an amber hearth felt strong to her. It was one of power, not only in cadence but in wealth, as the town was built upon the charter of one name. Her name. A crown of maple adorning her pretty little head. 

 

Of course, she’d since left Mistral, always believing she was born for a world much bigger than the one she was actually born in. She spent her late adolescence in the white spaces between lines of gilded parties, laughing along to the saccharine bubbles of twenties’ jazz and champagne. That time was since over, however. Money was no longer just a luxury, but an illusory god who’d abandoned its creations. She held it close to her chest— and what a beautiful chest it was. 

 

Hazel waited for her by the door. Sometimes, when she looked at him, he felt more like a vaguely acquainted family friend, than her husband. Their marriage was one of convenience, riding upon waves of liquid gold and mutual apathy. They allowed each other their mistresses and paramours, though they returned to the same bed each night. She could barely even remember their wedding day— a mere fever dream, only documented by the glistening ring on her finger. 

 

He said nothing as he helped her into her coat; muscle memory guiding his hand into the crook of her back, while his mind went elsewhere. Cinder Fall felt virtually nothing as she left her house of three months. She did feel dread, however, as she stepped further into the street, realizing where she’d have to go instead. 

 

The cab came to a halt in front of them, its inertia knocking their suitcases down onto the asphalt. Cinder grimaced, brow furrowing for a split second before reverting back to its cool stature. The man opened the back door for them, and she shuffled in slowly, not wanting to wrinkle her favorite garment, despite it being underneath fur collars and wool lining.    
  


She ran her hand over her stomach, knowing that she shouldn’t feel anything at all, but she just needed to make sure. Her grandmother couldn’t know she was pregnant. Hazel was the only one who did, even though the child didn’t belong to him, he didn’t really care. Her hands jolted off her body when his eyes locked onto them, and the scarlet shifted, no longer clinging to sweaty fingertips. 

 

“You think she’ll notice?” he asked dryly, voice not bothering to dip or jump in pitch. 

 

She shook her head slightly. “Not the bump, yet. She’ll see through me in a heartbeat, though.” 

 

“And you’re sure she’ll—” She cut him off with a firm glare and a sharp gesture to the cab driver, who tapped his finger on the steering wheel while he counted street-signs. Hazel let his already quiet voice plummet to a whisper. “Are you sure she’ll kill you for it?”

 

“It’s why I left in the first place,” Cinder confirmed, weaving her fingers between one another, before locking them in place. 

 

“Well, then, let’s hope you misunderstood,” Hazel grumbled, meaty fingers stroking a square jaw in irritation. The driver’s eyes met Cinder’s in the rearview mirror, entranced by the oil within her gaze, but blinked away when she scoffed. 

 

As Hazel exhaled, it was like the loud rumble from his chest filled the car with a calming molasses that weaved between each dust particle in the air. She was lucky to have him, even if she didn’t love him. She trusted him, even if she didn’t know him. She liked him a whole lot more than she did her grandmother. 

 

Salem Fall didn’t try to hide it when she opened the door; that sneer and condescension. She knew that her granddaughter knew all about her and what she’d do to anyone who shared her surname. The woman’s fingers curled around the door like pale spiders as she greeted them, her gaunt face and floor length gown fitting right in with the gothic skeleton she resided in. 

 

“Cinder,” she acknowledged, lips curling into an unrecognizable shape. “Come in.”

 

The door creaked open without any prompting touch from Salem’s fingers. Cinder could already taste the air inside, the humid wine of summertime dampened by old wood’s musk and a continuously burning fire. She knew the sound that her feet would make as she walked through the door. She could never forget the house she’d lived in for the first seventeen years of her life. The hell she’d lived in. 

 

“I cleaned up as much as I could but,” Salem paused, and her hands dropped mid gesture as she narrowed her eyes at the dust in the air. “You know how it goes.”

 

Cinder shrugged off her coat, her revealing honey skin and her scarlet tapestry. She released more of a glow than all the light fixtures in the room, though she was sure that soon enough, the gold would settle and she’d be just as dull as she’d been before she left. Hazel shifted uncomfortably, before setting the bags down in the foyer. 

 

“I’m just so delighted that you finally decided to come home,” Salem cooed, eyes raking over her granddaughter’s torso. “All  _ three  _ of you.” 

 

Cinder’s breath hitched in her throat, hands gravitating to her stomach protectively. “You—”

 

Salem cut her off. “I’m sure that you are all ready to just settle in— I’ll have Vernal get your room prepared while we…  _ catch up. _ ” She sat down on the couch, waving towards a table of expectant tea in invitation. Cinder complied, though begrudgingly, and Hazel just leaned against the wall stoically. Salem didn’t move her eyes from the gold she found in her granddaughter’s. They were just so entrancing. Her gaze followed the edge of sharp cheekbones, down to tanned shoulders. “You look so much like your mother.”

 

“I wouldn’t know,” Cinder spat, clutching the muscles in her thighs together so that they couldn’t shake as they wanted to. Salem ignored the spite, brushing it off the conversation with her feather duster words. 

 

“It’s sad to see you sell your home.” She paused. “But is it rude to say that I’m happy to see you again? Living here together, just like when you were a little girl.”

 

Cinder didn’t say anything. 

 

She remembered the aforementioned golden days quite clearly, how they darkened throughout the years before coming to a head when she was seventeen. When she left, not a single belonging attached to her. 

 

“I would… like to meet your husband more thoroughly, if you don’t mind,” Salem inquired. It sounded almost like she was asking permission, but Cinder wouldn’t be fooled. Hazel looked to her and cocked an eyebrow, before moving towards the couch across from Salem at Cinder’s signal. Salem turned to Cinder with an insidious smile. “I’m sure you need to catch up on your exhaustion. You’re sleeping for two now, see?”

 

Cinder huffed, grabbing her handbag before marching up the stairs. Her hand gripped into the banister, sliding reluctantly as she dragged it along for the ride. How did Salem  _ know _ ? She just needed to look at her, and everything was suddenly on the table. She had planned to leave the minute it became obvious, only staying while they searched for a new, less expensive home. And all of that careful planning went to waste the second she walked through the door. 

 

Her room was the second door on the left. It always had been. Right in between the master bedroom and the maroon painted study. As her thin fingers wrapped around the intricate door-handle, she hesitated to gulp, pursing her lips in anticipation. She expected to see her room either emptied, or just as she left it (if not with some extra dust and cobwebs), instead, her eyes gazed upon bright yellows and blues— a wooden crib in the corner. Salem had turned her bedroom into a nursery. 

 

She began to hyperventilate— she may have left, but that didn’t mean she didn’t exist. How did Salem know about the baby, likely before Cinder even figured out she was pregnant? Her eyes darted across white, wooden trim. Her hands stay paralyzed by her sides. 

 

“Ah— Mrs. Cinder, she must’ve forgotten to mention that you and your husband will be sharing the Master bedroom now,” a voice interrupted, as an angular palm caressed her shoulder. Cinder jolted in surprise at the new touch, remaining stiff as she looked the woman over. “I’m just finishing with the sheets, so you can come in, if you want.”

 

She didn’t know what to do, other than nod, following behind the assumed maid and into the master bedroom. “Why is there a nursery?”

 

“Well you  _ are  _ with child, right?” She looked back at Cinder, smiling almost daringly. She wanted to snap back, but her throat was caught underneath her automatic nod. “The mistress probably just wants you to be able to take care of the baby easily— she loves children.”

 

“I’m aware.” 

 

The maid chuckled, straightening the blankets out over the bed, biceps tensing subtly throughout. Cinder had to force herself to look away. She remembered the girl’s name now; Vernal. And while her stature and moxy were unparalleled, she fared no chances against the seventeen year old Cinder who had once been entranced by her. Still was entranced by her.

 

“Well, I’ll let you rest, then.” 

 

After she was sure that Vernal had left the room, ears adjusted to hear the telltale song of a clicking lock, Cinder let herself fall onto her new bed exasperatedly. She stared, catatonically at the ceiling; eyes following the shadows that lumbered across its rough skin. The gold in her irises had dulled into a drunken daydream. 

 

The day she left her grandmother, when she was only seventeen, was the day that she found out about how her mother died. The causality between the two events wasn’t illusory, either. Salem had raised Cinder practically her whole life, and she had only recounted fantastical stories about the darling Amber Fall. 

 

She remembered playing make believe in the woods outside. She’d tie string around sticks to build her bow, striking arrows into old stuffed animals she’d found around the house. Her voice would take the shape of the roguish hero, or the lost princess, or the great dragon. No matter what, though, it was Amber Fall who always saved the day. Her childhood under Salem wasn’t close to traumatic— as she’d been enchanted by her grandmother, who dressed like a Victorian queen and bought her all the chocolate she could’ve wanted. She never thought about her mother, what happened to her, because to her, Salem was her mother. 

 

Salem would read her all sorts of stories; fairy tales of warning and mystique. She remembered the story of two children, Hänsel and Gretel, and their journey into a witch’s clutches. To Cinder, it was a funny story. She found the children careless, stupid, for believing in syrupy daydreams and gingerbread floorboards. Eventually she learned that she was no different from them. No smarter. 

 

Because, in a way, Salem was the gingerbread witch— who fed her fantasy before going in for the kill. 

 

She found the journals when she was seventeen, collecting dust on some shelf in the study, next to an oriental style box full of useless trinkets. Her fingers still remembered the cobwebs, dissolving at her touch as she wiped the cover down. She could still remember each word verbatim, and mouthed along to her memory.

 

_ January 1691 _

_ My hair began to grey today. I hadn’t noticed it until my mother observed it, and it became quite clear to me how tangible and temporary life is. Adulthood seemed to be a completely impossible achievement as a juvenile. And now the same seems to be occurring as a woman. Soon enough, I will be unable to bear children. There comes a certain semblance of dissonance with that frightful concept.  _

_ Mistrala Grimm _

 

_ July 1691 _

_ My husband has been studying the texts of Him, and I’ve begun to read between the lines. There are many hints to eternal youth in His words. I think that I can go past prayer and create my own forever. I need to figure out how, but at this moment, I am sure that it is possible _

_ Mistrala Grimm _

 

_ August 1691 _

_ Witchcraft wasn’t my first choice, but it was the one clear method I could find. The spell was described in detail as something sinful and Satanic. The “light” that it provides as an alternative seems to be death, however. I merely need to find a means to propagate the spell. The latin offers a vague explanation of the final ingredient, the catalyst, and yet I can’t seem to define what can be exchanged for a life.  _

_ Mistrala Grimm _

 

_ November 1691 _

_ It has taken me months to finally prepare. The spell is practically finished, and yet the final step has yet to be instated. It took me long nights studying and pondering over the sacred texts for me to finally understand the true nature of the spell that I’ve concocted. Before I began to age, I may have seen my plans as a sin, as the devil’s work. And yet now I understand how valuable my time is. And how easily I can extend it. Because the cost of one life, is that of another. And I don’t see much harm in it. _

_ Mistrala Grimm _

 

_ January 1692 _

_ It was easy to instigate. I merely whispered tales into my daughter’s ears, and she quickly took to them. Tales of witches and sin. She has a certain temperament nature that will only make it easier. She’ll speak in His words for my favor. And she’ll never be the wiser.  _

_ Mistrala Grimm _

 

_ April 1692  _

_ Naturally, the God fearing men of our town have easily taken to the idea of evil corrupting the streets. It makes them feel like God chosen saints. They attach to the idea of women being evil, while they burn them to the ground. Either way, the real witch is right under their noses. It almost seems laughable.  _

_ Mistrala Grimm _

 

_ May 1693 _

_ The last of them died today. My daughter had an idea what was happening by the end of it, but I left before she could point her finger at me next. The souls are weak, and temporary, but should tide me over for awhile. I’m writing from a forest, I can see the sea from here. I think I might stay for awhile. _

_ Mistrala Grimm  _ __

_ Salem Fall _

 

She could’ve attributed it to another person. Or ignored it in favor of the pleasantries of an incoming adulthood. But something drew her naive mind to the remaining pages. To the answers that she didn’t even want. 

 

Cinder ran her hand over her stomach again, hesitant to marvel at the life growing inside her. Because she knew what its fate would be. The same as her own. Destined to die. 

 

_ March 1870 _

_ The souls of Salem have dissipated, and I now feel the grip of the reaper once more. I’ve found a solution to this, however. It turns out that the women’s souls weren’t bonded to mine in a way that’d make their deaths more… effective in my favor. I assume that achieving this bond could only be possible through blood relation. Trial and error won’t hurt me.  _

_ Salem Fall _

 

_ August 1874 _

_ I had twins. Arthur and Amber. She took my last name while he took their father’s. Not that it will matter in the end.  _

 

_ November 1903 _

_ Amber is pregnant. She wants to know where her brother went. She’ll know soon enough. _

__

_ August 1904 _

_ I named her Cinder. Cinder Fall _

 

The biggest problem was, that she really wanted children. She always had. There was something magical in having that power to give and shape a life. Hazel would prove to be a good father, if he ever got the chance. 

 

She rolled over onto her side, curling her legs up to her chest, arms binding around her thighs gently. Because it was Salem who killed her mother, and trapped her spirit in a house so she could be immortal. The same thing would happen to her unless she left as soon as she could. This was only temporary. 

 

Cinder hoisted herself into a sitting position, hair cascading down like vines off her shoulder as she looked into her own eyes. She approached the dresser’s mirror cautiously, fingertips tracing the angles of her face gently, entranced in herself. They trailed down her neck, over her collarbones and down to her— she stopped. 

 

A man stood behind her, in the mirror, and smiled. 

 

_ “I believe we need to have a little chat, my dear Cinder.”  _

 

X

X

X

 

**1934**

 

Hazel was dead. His head was smeared across the wall in a feral slam, pieces of jaw and gray matter slowly slipping down floral wallpaper in a river of scarlet. Cinder couldn’t hear her own screams— it wasn’t supposed to go like this. But there she was; in labor, as her husband lay scattered across the floor. 

 

She didn’t know who did it. The ghost took the form of a rotting corpse; black teeth, putrefied skin and exposed muscle. He was nothing like her Uncle or Mother, who had taken passive and inarguably more approachable forms. Vernal urged her to keep pushing, hand entwined in hers, holding it tightly.  

 

“It’s a shame that ordinary spirits take such disastrous forms,” Salem sighed, running a bony hand over the creature’s spine in a scarily maternal way, before lifting it in an almost disgusted way. “I was fond of Tyrian when he was alive, really.” 

 

So that’s what happened to her father. Good to know. 

 

“I must commend you for your attempts, all of you.” Salem’s gaze arked around the room, as if aimed at someone other than her granddaughter. “But the walls have eyes, you know.” 

 

Cinder didn’t notice when the baby finally exited her, still in shock from everything that happened. She was supposed to burn the house away, the night of the ritual, taking her family far from it. Vernal held the baby close to her chest as she shakily cut the umbilical cord, before wiping away the blood and tissue that coated it. 

 

“It’s a girl,” the maid mumbled. The baby cried loudly and Cinder grunted in pain. Something was wrong. She wouldn’t stop bleeding. Vernal noticed immediately, shoving the infant into its mother’s arms. “Just stay still— you’re going to be fine.” 

 

Salem smirked, tongue gliding across her lips, smudging her maroon lipstick slightly. Tyrian fidgeted next to her, fingers breaking and coming back together in a sporadic rhythm. She didn’t seem to get any closer, however; perfectly content with watching her granddaughter and her lover cling on to an inevitably fragile life. The baby continued to cry, and yet it just brought a smile to her face. 

 

Vernal bit her lip, child still in her arms, before wiping some sweat off of Cinder’s brow. “You’re a witch too, right?” she asked, only continuing when the woman nodded weakly. She had the blood of a witch, at least. “Then you can take  _ my  _ soul to kill her.” 

 

Cinder looked at her, frozen in time. Vernal took her hand firmly and laid it against her chest. “It’s yours.” 

 

She could feel the life leaving her by the second. 

 

Cinder didn’t even know if she could do it— what Salem did. It wasn’t like she wanted to live forever, or anything. But she wanted it all to stop. Her fingers scraped against Vernal’s beating heart, before digging into the elixr within them. The baby still cried and cried, but the noise was muted by the embers that surrounded her mother. Vernal erupted into a flame that crawled up Cinder’s arm. Although the fire was hers to control, it ate into her skin, burning with fervor. This power was temporary. She had one shot. 

 

“I guess you learned something from me, using her soul as energy.” Salem grinned. “You’ll still die. You killed her for nothing.”

 

“I guess you’re nothing then,” Cinder spat. Her flesh cracked, revealing molten gold underneath. 

 

Tyrian hissed and tackled her to the ground, its long and reptilian tongue lolling out of its mouth and hovering over the flaming body that was its daughter. But within seconds, it burned away, letting out a series of blood curdling screams, choked bubbles of noise, as it tore at its own body in agony. 

 

She could feel the power nearing its climax, her limit. She knew that she had to end all of this.. She let her human hand gently stroke her crying daughter’s cheek, before she looked to her grandmother with those liquid gold eyes. Salem clicked her tongue in annoyance, but merely looked at her watch. As if she already knew how all of this would play out. 

 

And as Cinder poured her and Vernal’s entire soul into her strike, as she attempted to save her daughter from an inevitable death in thirty years, as she cried for her loved ones— her hand didn’t touch her grandmother at all. She knew this feeling. The feeling of a soul meeting hers. The ghost of Amber Fall stood in front of Salem, held by a trance, before burning away with the last of the power. 

 

And that was it. 

 

Cinder Fall was dead. 

 

X

X

X

 

**2018**

 

They sat in silence. 

 

Cinder watched from her intangible location as they contemplated her existence. She couldn’t speak to them the way that Arthur could, or that Neo could. But she could watch. She’d been watching for years and years. 

 

The blonde girl, Yang, was the strangest of the group. Willing to free the ghosts without even asking the most obvious of questions— doing whatever she thought was right. It reminded her of Vernal. 

 

It was hard to see Salem take her form in 1994, claiming the home as her own, after its residents ‘mysteriously died.’ It always went like that. It was harder to see her wearing a scarlet dress. Her favorite dress. 

 

It was Raven who spoke first. “So, now that you know, what do you say we do?” 

 

Cinder liked Raven. They spoke soon after the fire of ‘94 through the cracks in the damaged walls; Raven promised to free her. To destroy Salem. Cinder wasn’t sure why, exactly, the woman complied with her proposal. But she had. There were many mortal attempts to claim the house from underneath Salem through legal means, and though they were futile, Raven stood determined to destroy the house on Fox Street.

 

“Well, we call ‘Cinder Fall’ and burn the house down,” the blonde one reasoned, putting a quotation gesture around the name. “Dad has her number, he can just call about like… ‘strange things happening’ and she’ll jump to keep us here.” 

 

“Why would she want to keep us here?” Taiyang asked, voice low and contemplative. . Cinder recalled that he was Yang’s father. 

 

“Well I can’t think of any more Falls living here… She needs someone to kill.” Mercury sat on the couch in a forced casualty. He looked to Yang’s father, Tai, Cinder remembered. “You’re pretty killable.” 

 

“You two are the worst,” Yang groaned, before licking her lips. “So we call Salem here and burn the house down. Is that it?” 

 

“No,” Raven answered. “Well— not completely.” 

 

“Salem is practically immortal, right? It’s not like she’s going to just sit in the house while it burns down,” Mercury drawled, rotating his wrist around as he motioned to the words he was saying. “We need to keep her here.” 

 

“Exactly.” Qrow nodded. Cinder liked Qrow a lot less than she did Raven, but she was pretty gaybiased. 

 

Cinder jumped a bit as her Uncle strode next to her, or she would’ve if she had a tangible form. He appeared in the mirror for the group, but to her, he gripped her shoulder condescendingly. “ _ We have that taken care of, my mortal acquaintances.”  _

 

Mercury, naturally, wrinkled his nose at him. “You realize you could’ve just told us all of this like a few hours ago in a few minutes? You’ve obviously been planning this for years.”

 

“ _ Ah yes, but there’s no fun in that now, is there?”  _

 

“How are you going to hold her? You don’t even have a form.” Yang argued, unimpressed. 

 

“ _ We are raw power. We will literally be killing her with what’s keeping her alive.” _

 

“So what you’re saying is,” Yang started, face deathly still as she attempted to hold in a laugh. “We’re fighting fire with fire?” 

 

A collective groan resonated throughout the room, while Mercury held up a fist bump that was readily accepted.

 

Cinder rolled her eye. She only had one. If she could reveal her physical form to them, they’d really only see the right half of her. It wouldn’t be particularly gorey, either. You couldn’t see her organs if you looked at the seam between tangible and intangible, just pure negative space. It was a strange existence, really, as half of her soul had burned away decades ago. 

 

Tai cracked his neck to the side and pulled out his phone clumsily. He entered in his password with heavy fingers and squinted eyes. “I guess I’ll call her, then.”

 

“Put her on speaker, would you?” Qrow suggested, flopping onto the couch as he flicked open his flask nonchalantly. He took a swig, and nodded as he heard the other end ring loudly. 

 

“Where does she even go when she isn’t here?” Yang wondered absentmindedly. 

 

Mercury shrugged. “I mean if I were immortal, I wouldn’t waste all my time in this dump. She’s probably living it up in Vegas.”

 

“Merc, she’s literally a phone call away,” Yang deadpanned. 

 

“Yang, she’s literally, like, a witch.” 

 

“Quiet, both of you,” Raven hissed, jerking her head in the direction of the phone, which Tai had laid on the table. It rang again, with no answer. 

 

“ _ I don’t know,”  _ Watts drawled. “ _ I found them engaging.” _

 

“Do you really have to comment on all of our personal matters? Like instead of doing whatever ghost thing you do.” Yang learned from the last time she tried not to cross her arms, since she only had one, so she went for the next best thing and put her hand on her hip, leaning all of her weight onto one side. 

 

_ “Did you really have to copulate in the cellar?” _

 

“I’m just going to end this conversation here,” Tai interjected. He could never escape the events of the basement— particularly the  _ non _ -spectral one. 

 

Cinder remembered it, how she was entranced in their enchantment. 

 

The ringing ceased, and a telltale click resounded from the other end as Salem answered. Cinder felt a wave of anxiety charge through her as she heard that voice. What was once her own. 

 

“ _ Mr. Xiao Long, I wasn’t expecting a call from you so soon,”  _ she paused. “ _ I assume everything is going well?” _

 

“Yeah about that— this house hasn’t been the most… serene as of late.” 

 

“ _ How so?” _

 

Tai looked to the rest for a word bank, not sure what tale to spin. Mercury pantomimed flickering lights, while Yang pointed to the basement. “The lights have been flickering in the basement.” 

 

Cinder groaned. 

 

“ _ I’m sure that’s just the electrical system, the house is old, after all. I don’t see why you’d need the basement anyways.”  _

 

“No I mean— there are always… sounds coming from there. And when I go to check them out, the lights flicker like mad. My daughter has been waking up in the dead of night, claiming to have seen figures in the darkness. I’m considering an airbnb instead, Ms. Fall.” 

 

Slightly better. 

 

“ _ You agreed to stay for the summer, Mr. Xiao Long.” _

 

“Prove it.” 

“ _ I’ll be at the house in twenty minutes, with the paperwork in full.” _

 

Click. 

 

He put the phone down and sighed. “She’s a lot bitchier than I remember.” 

 

Raven’s nostrils flared with an “I told you so” sort of vigor, as she took another sip of most likely chilled tea, at this point. Qrow pat his brother-in-law on the shoulder lightly, muttering some sort of affirmation under his breath. Yang curled her hand around Mercury’s, and he squeezed back without looking at her. An unspoken affection. Cinder noticed, though, and her chest filled with a maternal warmth. 

 

This was how it was supposed to be. 

 

No matter how temporary.

  
  


**1963**

Neopolitan Fall brought Roman Torchwick home during the loud tempests of spring, her dainty fingers curled around his gloved ones as her lacy dress rained onto the carpet. Her dark hair glistened in the orange light, and her cheeks glowed with an almost-smile. Cinder was instantly encapsulated in him, his charming demeanor that surrounded his words as he spoke. It wasn’t romantic, persay, but she couldn’t help but enjoy his presence. 

 

As Neo introduced her lover to her ‘mother’ (Salem had insidiously raised Neo as her own, erasing the girl’s actual mother from the picture,) Cinder watched in pain, knowing exactly what would inevitably befall the couple. Unlike Cinder herself, her daughter had inherited little strong willed moxy. A slight little thing, she trusted Salem wholeheartedly, and blanketed herself in the fantasy that was spun for her. A hopeless romantic, naivete would soon eat her alive, Cinder knew. But she could do nothing to stop it. 

 

“The two of you are quite the pair,” Salem said, smile playing at her lips. 

 

“We’re getting married, mother,” Neo insisted, tugging at her hair anxiously. “You said I could have the house if I ever got married.” 

 

Though the news was bewildering, Cinder already saw Salem’s lips curling upwards, not even needing to look in her direction. “Why, you two barely know one another. If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Torchwick has been parading around the country for business.” 

 

“We’re  _ getting married _ .” Neo’s arms wrapped around her torso defensively and Cinder just  _ knew _ . She knew that Neo was pregnant. That the events of thirty years ago were on loop. 

 

Roman looked almost indifferent as he stood by the door, forcing leather gloves off his hands. He looked at his watch, and then at Salem, as if sizing her up against his limited time. As Neo glared, and it became apparent that this would become a whole  _ affair _ , he lifted the bowler hat from his head and hung it carefully on the hanger. 

 

Salem rotated her wrist and rubbed her fingers together, as if inspecting dirt that wasn’t there. She looked directly into her granddaughter’s golden, watching eyes, and smirked. “I’ll be sure to give you two space then— when’s the wedding?” 

 

Neo’s eyes lit up, and her baby cheeks wrinkled under her innocent smile. She was already 29 years old, and yet she was still a child, raised not for the life in front of her, but for the death that would cut it short. Cinder grimaced as her daughter spoke ecstatically, orchids in her piccolo voice. “I was thinking a summer wedding? Maybe August. The wildflowers are so wonderful in August.” 

 

“You want the dress to fit, though, right?” Roman said, bored, basically affirming Cinder’s suspicions. 

 

Neo gasped lightly, like flower petals drifting in an unexpected burst of cool wind. “You’re right! Maybe next year, then. The baby will have been born.”

 

“I see,” Salem said, though it was apparent that her eyes were not opening for the first time. “A shotgun wedding, is it?”

 

“No!” Neo insisted. “Roman and I are soulmates. Aren’t we?” 

 

Roman nodded slightly, before looking at his watch again. “Very much so.” 

 

“And the baby is proof of that,” she huffed, crossing her arms. It was quite endearing. Cinder couldn’t help but wish that she’d raised her instead. 

 

X

X

X

 

She began to visit Roman Torchwick through his dreams. There was something about him that puzzled her, and she had nothing better to do than figure it out. Though he showed little visible interest in Neo, the moment he laid his eyes on the golden Cinder, he became entranced in her stature and seduction. 

 

“Who are you?” He asked, reaching to touch her hair, hoping to find that he could feel the chocolate in his fingers, and that he wasn’t dreaming. 

 

“I am Cinder Fall,” she answered. 

 

“Am I dreaming?” He asked, though fully lucid. 

 

“Yes.” 

 

For some reason, he’d never remember their nighttime encounters. He woke up with a small body wrapped around him, but another woman’s smell in his head, even though he hadn’t left the bed all night. As the days went on, and his dissonance grew stronger, he’d retreat to the sheets. Hoping. His wishes would come true, and he’d see Cinder each night, but he would remember nothing when he woke up. 

 

She told him the story of her death. Of what would happen to him and Neo. Of Salem. He would listen intently, ready to break the news to his wife when he finally jolted awake and yet— nothing. Amber would speak through dreams to her daughter back in 1934, but Cinder remembered everything. She thought that it was possibly her own soul’s weakness. It was incomplete, not able to fully imprint within another’s. 

 

But one day, Roman Torchwick woke up with something. A name. A snap of dry wind and the richness of an amber hearth. He wrote it over, and over again. In his little black book. 

 

X

X

X

 

**1964**

Naturally, Roman remembered nothing more than the name. And the wedding continued as planned. Luckily, she’d lost the pregnancy weight in time. Neo had the baby only a year or so prior, loving the child to death, though its existence was to be erased from the records until after they were already married. Though common, shotgun weddings were less than savory for a high status family. Cinder doubted that Salem cared, or that Roman cared, for that matter. But Neo did. It was her day. 

 

“I’m just paralyzed with happiness,” she cooed, spinning around. Her shawl spiraled with her in a cloud of smoke as she giggled. 

 

She boasted her pearls and inhaled the lace adorning her petite form. Her heterochromic eyes sparkled in the presence of the wild flowers. Snowflakes of daisies, and tongues of lavender crowded along the long stretch of minty grass, swaying in the breeze as they cheered their admirer on for her beauty.

 

Roman wore a suit. He barely bothered to iron it, but it worked. He looked exactly how one would expect. He didn’t cease wearing the bowler hat, though, so there was very little change in his overall demeanor. 

 

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Neo asked him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. 

 

“It is,” he agreed. 

 

“I knew you’d like it.” She giggled mischievously, before tossing rose petals in his direction. 

 

“You’re  _ so _ funny,” he deadpanned, a fleck of red sliding off the brim of his hat and bouncing off his nose. 

 

“I know!” 

 

Cinder watched from afar. Knowing that sooner or later, all the lily patterned guests would be wearing black instead. 

 

X   
X

X 

The baby cried in her arms, and Neo smiled, hand smoothing out the silky locks of hair adorning her head. “She’s so wonderful, isn’t she?”

 

Roman approached his wife and child smoothly, green eyes staring into pitch black ones. “Who do you think she got the eyes from?” 

 

“Maybe her grandmother?”

 

“Her eyes aren’t remotely this color.” 

 

“Grandfather?” 

 

He shrugged. “They are quite beautiful though. Like two obsidians.” 

 

“We named her well.” 

 

“I guess you did,” Roman agreed. He frowned slightly, as Neo picked up his black journal that rested on the coffee table next to her, forgotten in the panic of a possible party. 

 

“It’s for your work, right? Did you hide all the names or something?” She asked, even though the answer was right in front of her. She pointed at a page. “Who is this?”

 

“I don’t remember,” he said, staring blankly at the page.  _ Who was Cinder Fall, again?  _

 

Cinder sat, staring at the fire’s glow, following how it licked at their skin like snakes. Her Uncle sat next to her, appearing from his home in the walls. “You realize what we have to do next, right?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

“I don’t know why you’re fond of him,” he muttered. “But you  _ are _ a witch.”

 

“I know.” Roman wouldn’t be distorting like Hazel or Tyrian, as she bound him to his most precious possession. 

 

“Hazel is waiting to strike them, you know how he is. Salem has prepared him.” 

 

Neo shivered slightly, reaching for a blanket she had received as a wedding gift and then wrapping it around her. “It’s cold.”

 

“Is it?” Roman asked, moving to grab another blanket for the baby. 

 

“Just add more wood to the fire, or something,” she insisted. “It’s freezing.” 

 

Cinder felt the frost from her heart enter the room. Maybe her power would work this time. She watched chubby hands reach for the embers that escaped the confines of the fireplace in the hopes to become stars. The crystals in the chandelier became the child’s galaxy, and tears pricked at Cinder’s eyes. “It never ends.”

 

“We can end it here,” he consoled. And she knew that, but she didn’t want to kill the child. She didn’t want to end the cycle of death by fulfilling it again. But it was now or never. “All we need is…” 

 

And suddenly, Roman Torchwick remembered everything. Everything that Cinder Fall told him, everything that he could infer. And as he grabbed the box of matches from the counter, and flicked it to life. He let out his last words calmly. 

 

“—a spark.” 

 

The match fell to the floor, and the house was engulfed in the saddest of flames.

 

X

X

X 

Cinder couldn’t let the baby die. She didn’t know why, because she wanted nothing more than to cease her existence in this limbo that Salem created. Hazel barreled in through the fire, headless and feral, searching for the infant for its master. Cinder threw him against the wall with all the force she could muster, and she could feel her power draining. 

 

It started as a tingle in her fingers, but felt like ice as it grew along her form. She would either lose herself like Tyrian and Hazel had, or have to lock her consciousness away for a few decades. The latter choice was an infinitely better option. 

 

She couldn’t let it go this way again. She couldn’t let another Fall die without purpose. 

 

She kissed the baby’s forehead, wiping charcoal away from her cheek. “You’re going to be okay, alright?” 

 

With the last ounce of strength she had, Cinder Fall bestowed her granddaughter with safety. With knowledge. Maybe she’d run far enough away. 

 

As the world faded into black, and as Hazel lifted the child into Salem’s waiting arms, Cinder smiled. 

 

She knew she had won. 

 

X

X

X

 

**2018**

They waited for Salem by packing their things, pushing suitcases to the foyer with an implied rush that would come across as possible-ghost-induced-panic, and not a plot to torch the place. Cinder smiled sadly as Yang pulled Mercury up the stairs, ignoring his complaints masterfully. She shivered as he looked right through her, before turning away. 

 

Knowing that their moments alone were numbered, she didn’t follow them. Watts cocked an eyebrow at her discomfort. She tried to defend herself, clenching her fist. “It’s just that—”

 

“I’m aware, Cinder.” 

 

After a few minutes, what seemed like hours, he turned towards the Branwen twins, who had just returned from the basement with gallons of gasoline in their hands. As he spoke through the mirror, he moved animatedly. “ _ Good. I’d help you pour it but my hands don’t exist.” _

 

“I never thought I’d actually agree with Mercury— you’re an ass.” Qrow grunted, hoisting the red gallon onto his knee to twist the cap off violently. 

 

“What’s that about Mercury?” Raven asked, sarcasm weighing her voice down as if it were the water in a drenched cloth. “You know, the kid you killed for a promotion.”

 

The room was silent after that. Qrow moved to say something, opening his mouth and quickly breathing in— but he was cut off as Tai hopped down the stairs. “Did you guys pour all the gasoline?” 

 

Qrow closed his mouth, tensing his jaw. He shook his head, despite his words being affirmative. “Yeah.” 

 

“Where are the kids?” Tai asked. “Salem should be here in a few minutes.” 

 

“ _ Probably making love in the attic,”  _ Watts said, a condescending growl to his bourbon voice. _ “They’re hitting every stop at this point.” _

 

“Why are you even here?” Tai groaned, fingers gripping his temple in exasperation. “Don’t you have ghost business to deal with?” 

 

“ _ I’ve dealt with ‘ghost business’ for over a century,”  _ he said, throat closing in around his words, giving him a nasaly sense of deference. “ _ I’d rather enjoy my presumed last hours in this miserable place.”  _

 

Cinder watched him straighten his tie, tilting her head slightly. She turned quickly to the loud thumping from the stairs, as Yang and Mercury hurried down. She smiled as Yang straightened her jacket to cover the large purple bruise adorning her neck, as Mercury ruffled his tangled hair. Tai, on the other hand, sighed loudly; defeated. 

 

“ _ I mean, I told you.”  _

 

“That you did,” Qrow murmured. He looked towards Mercury, who refused to meet his gaze for even a second. His eyes carved shapes into the wall as he explored each pattern painted onto it. It was a wall he knew well. Too well. 

 

X

X

x

 

**1990:**

He was twelve when Cinder finally woke up. 

Helpless, shaking, cornered at the foot of the basement stairs. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin; he looked just like his mother. Or at least, who Cinder assumed was his mother. His fingernails scraped against the leather of his chair, his cage— she didn’t know what to do. After a few moments, he turned his gaze towards her, eyebrows furrowing unnoticeably.

She stood there, dumbfounded, as he asked for her name.

“You can see me?” Cinder asked, looking behind her to make sure there was no one else he could be addressing.

“I thought I met all of you,” he replied, puzzled. Though he no longer looked like he was having the panic attack of the century, his fingers dug patterns into his armrests, and his lips were chapped even as he ran his tongue over each crack.

“You can see me” Cinder repeated, more of a statement than a question this time. She sat down on the stairs, expecting to feel the wood underneath her thighs, before remembering that she couldn’t.

“Yeah, I don’t know why.” He shrugged, running a hand through overgrown hair.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, before eyeing the wheelchair skeptically. “It doesn’t look like you got here yourself.”

 

“I was being too noisy, I don’t know.” He pursed his lips, trying to hold something back. An outburst? Tears? Anger? Cinder couldn’t tell. “Does he even need a reason?”

“Who?”

“My dad.”

“What about your mom?”

“She’s related to you, right? I don’t know how far back you go.” He continued when Cinder told him. 1934. “She died.”

Cinder felt her stomach drop— did Salem win again? What year was it anyways?

“Killed herself a few years ago. Wouldn’t blame her if I wasn’t in the car with her.” He said, almost nonchalantly, motioning to his lower body swiftly before tilting his head back. “So, sorry, I guess. She was your granddaughter right? Wait— are you Neo’s mom?”

He talked fast. She expected him to be a lot more contained— that’s how he acted initially. There was nothing about him that screamed extrovert— especially considering his current status in a dark, haunted basement on the whims of his father. Cinder realized then that he was still a child— voice still shifting into a lower octave, still awkward on his lanky frame, constantly curious.

“Yeah,” Cinder answered, recomposing herself. “I didn’t raise her, but I did… care.”

“That was Salem, right?”

“You know about her?”

“I literally talk to the people she killed,” he scoffed, smirking slightly. “Of course I know.”

It suddenly dawned on Cinder that this child wasn’t normal. “How do you see us, anyways?”

“Salem is a witch, right? I got some of the magic genes.” He shrugged again. “That’s what Watts says.”

That was just like her. Her ability to use souls for power. She realized upon looking at her other relatives, that the magic Salem passed on manifested itself in different ways. Watts had an incredible skill with knowledge and technology, so he said. Amber could seemingly calm any animal she met. Neo had an almost fairy-like charm, doe eyes working wonders on unknowing strangers. And apparently, this boy could see them all.

“Where are they now?” Cinder asked.

“Hell if I know. They’re always fucking around.” He made a gesture to the air, twirling his wrist slightly to implicate their existence. “I’m glad you’re here, though.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like it here. Alone.” He slumped into himself.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

He didn’t answer for a few seconds, too busy gnawing into his lip to form any words with them. “Mercury.”

“Mercury,” she repeated. Cinder realized, right then, that Mercury was her only chance, at regaining what she’d lost. Being a mother. Growing into herself. She took a long, unwavering, imaginary breath. “I won’t let you be alone anymore.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“No, I can’t.” She agreed. “But I will.”

**1992**

He dyed his hair at fourteen.

He’d always talk about doing it, entranced by his punk rock idols and desperate to piss his father off. He was joined by his friend, Emerald, who he’d met halfway through seventh grade. She transferred, moving all the way from New York City, and gravitated to the loner wheelchair ridden kid just because everyone else told her not to. Cinder liked Emerald; how she was everything that Mercury seemed to need.

And thank god it wasn’t remotely romantic.

He never told Emerald about the ghosts, not really, anyways. He’d talk about his family’s weird history, while she would draw designs with sharpie onto his skin. Cinder would watch, tracing the lines with her golden stare.

“We should dye our hair,” Emerald said, expression not changing as she concentrated on her replication of the Guns and Roses emblem on Mercury’s wrist.

“Hella,” he replied, trying not to squirm. “What colors?”

“I wanted something colorful,” she answered offhandedly. “I don’t know— I want it to be obvious that I’m into girls.”

“Did Henry try getting in your pants again or something?”

She lifted the maker’s felt tip from his skin, looking over her work in concentration. “Probably. I don’t know. I miss New York.”

“I certainly don’t miss you obsessing over it,” he deadpanned. “Seeing as you never stop.” 

“Sorry that this town sucks ass.”

“Don’t apologize,” he laughed, before looking straight into her eyes. With that obsidian stare. “You can leave after all this highschool crap is over. You get good grades.”

“So do you,” she retorted. “You’re a certified genius.”

“Who can’t walk,” he pointed out. It wasn’t often that Mercury brought his whole legs situation up— especially not with any genuine frustration. Usually it came to light in a joke, or a complaint about everyday obstacles. He flopped backwards onto the bed, playing with a stray lock of Emerald’s hair absentmindedly. “You should go green.”

“Green? Since when does that work?”

“Since I said so.”

“It’s because of my name, isn’t it?” She sighed when he nodded, slapping his forehead gently. “You’re _so_ creative.”

“Hell yeah I am. I’m a connoisseur of innovation.”   

“If I, Emerald, am dying my hair _green_ , it’s only fair if you, Mercury, dye yours silver.”

“Ouch, must you inflict such cringe onto me?”

They continued their banter as usual, leaving their homework and studying stacked and forgotten on his desk. It went like this every day, until 5:30, when Marcus would get back from work. Emerald knew what happened after she left, Mercury didn’t have to tell her. And she didn’t have to be happy about it. Though she was sought after by the majority of Mistral high’s student population for some sort of companionship, Mercury was her only friend, and she couldn’t betray his trust in the hopes of solving a very complicated issue.

Marcus pummeled him into a bloody pulp after he came home with a choppy head of metallic hair, Emerald’s doodles looking like tattoos on his arms. He was tossed into the basement like an object, not even bothering to send his chair after him. Mercury groaned, coughing at the dust he startled, and holding his ribs carefully as he tried to pull himself into a sitting position.

Cinder sat next to him, once he’d finally gotten as comfortable as he could. She motioned to his hair. “Was it worth it?”

“Oh hell yeah.”

She smiled.

**1993**

“Is this the Mistal police station?”

“ _Yeah, this is Officer Qrow Branwen answering— how can I help you?”_

_“_ My dad he— he does things. I don’t feel safe anymore.”

“ _What does he do?”_

“You’re supposed to help me, right? Can you please get me out— I can’t run.”

“ _Can I have a name and address?”_

“Mercury Black. I’m on Fox Street. The only house people think of there.”

_“I’ll send some people over— I promise I can get you out.”_

“You sure?”

“ _Positive.”_

_“_ Thank you.”

_“No problem kiddo. Stay safe.”_

**1994**

Mercury’s head split open on the banister as Marcus slammed him into it. Blood pooled from his temple, and his vision went fuzzy with unintelligible colors and shapes. The chair gave him some benefits, other than giving Emerald a seat whenever she was too lazy to walk to class. Upper body strength was one of them. As his father went to guzzle down another pint of alcohol, he dragged himself to the living room, tugging on the phone’s curled cord clumsily.

9

1

1

“ _Hello, this is Officer Branwen speaking— what’s your emergency?”_

“You promised to get me out, right?”

“ _Mercury?”_

“Yeah, him. You know, the person you made a promise to, and never went through with it?”

“ _We sent guys to your house, there was no conclusive evidence of—“_

“As if I’m not enough conclusive evidence,” he scoffed.

“ _I’m not in control of the—“_

“Well you’re in control of your own goddamn ass, Branwen.”

“ _I can’t—“_

“Well fuck you too.”

He didn’t hang up— he didn’t have enough time to. Marcus’ hand latched itself around his throat, throwing him into the wall.

“You thought you could call the cops on me, huh?!” He released the grip just enough to slam him back again twice as hard. His voice was nothing more than asphalt under his face, moving at light speed as it skinned Mercury alive. “Too scared to run away on those fucked up legs of yours?”

Cinder screamed, knowing she could do nothing in her state. She gripped Marcus’ arms with her intangible hands, trying to pry them off of Mercury. Neo’s hand graced her shoulder, causing Cinder to snap her head towards her daughter. And there she stood, tears in her eyes, as Watts stood next to her, grim expression painted on his already grim face.

“We can’t do anything,” Neo whispered.

“But we  _ can _ ,” Cinder argued. “We can do everything.”

“He won’t let us.”

As Marcus launched fist, after fist into Mercury’s face, the boy himself looked past the pain and directly into her eyes. Obsidian.

“He doesn’t just see us, Cinder—  _ Mother _ ,” Neo sighed. “He can stop us, too. He doesn’t want us to help.”

“ _ Why? _ ” Cinder choked.

“Because then there would be no more Falls.” Watts said, the usual flair void from his tone. “His mother killed herself, knowing that if she and Mercury died, Salem couldn’t kill any more of us. There wouldn’t be any more of us  _ to  _ kill. He’s going to finish the job.”

“Why did he call Qrow, then? Huh? If he wanted to die.”

Mercury spoke, then. It was unintelligible, to anyone outside of Cinder, blocked by the blood bursting between his words, and the chokehold trying to block them.

“Because I  _ don’t _ want to die.”

Marcus squeezed tighter, until no more air could enter Mercury’s lungs, and until his desperate hands, covered in ink, stopped twitching.

He dumped the body in the ocean.

Maybe Cinder could never be a mother, after all. Even after she was dead.

 

_ X _

_ X _

_ X _

 

**2018**

 

The sight of Salem at the door sent Cinder’s nonexistent heart into overdrive. It was strange, seeing herself reflected onto the woman who both gave and destroyed her life. A life that sent her wondering if it even was hers to begin with. 

 

The woman didn’t even bother to knock, letting the door open in her presence on it’s own as she stepped into the house. Her heels dug into the floorboards, the sound of superiority assuming its path into every ear in the room with each violent, stride. Her shadow was strapped to her soles, otherwise trying to escape in between each tsunami of fire.

 

“I wasn’t aware I’d be greeting the whole entourage, Mr. Xiao Long,” Cinder— or rather,  _ Salem _ said, leaning her weight onto one leg.  “I would’ve brought casserole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> : ) )


	7. The Wilted Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But you’ve wanted to leave.”
> 
>  
> 
> “I still do. I’m just mad about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey it's been almost a year have a chapter

**Chapter 7:** The Wilted Rose

 

Mercury didn’t see Salem like the others did. He didn’t fear her. 

           She walked through the house knowing that they knew. Even though she wore her skin, Cinder was nowhere to be found in those golden eyes; the ivory pigment was almost translucent as flesh pulled tight across her bony frame. Cinder didn’t walk like that either, not with a blanket of shadows around her feet. 

           Her eyes raked across each person in the room. Each ghost. They trailed up and down Yang’s body, and she gripped Mercury’s hand tightly. He gripped back. It was the least he could do. 

           He didn’t really know why he hadn’t told her yet. It would be like a slap in the face when she finally found out, and he faded away. She’d be pissed, he knew— but it wasn’t like she could blame him. Guess being dead for over twenty years had some perks. 

           “So you wanted to talk about the ghosts,” Salem said, smile unfriendly and unyielding. As if she found this whole thing amusing. “Maybe you can ask them. They’re right here, after all.”

 

Mercury frowned as her hands fluttered through the air, motioning to where Watts stood, though he took no visible form. When her hand fell slowly, it paused in between two obsidian eyes, before returning to her lap. Yang shivered next to him as if Salem had sent ice along her nerves, trapping them in a repeating, two frame gif of fear and contempt. 

 

“I don’t really get why you made a whole story, if you’re going to make it so obvious that you know everything.”

 

“Well it worked to bring you here,” Tai retorted. Mouth contorted and eyes darkened, his voice didn’t match the cargo shorts he wore. 

 

“I guess it did.” She picked absentmindedly at a piece of lint on her dress. 

 

“So before one of us dies,” he sat down across from her. “Why don’t we have a chat?”

 

“I assure you, Mr. Xiao Long,” her red lips were empty as they curled upwards. “It won’t be  _ one  _ of us dying.” 

 

He ignored her. “So, why us? Why are we here anyways?”

 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She smirked, providing him an explanation anyways. “People assume that renters leave because they left. Not because they died.”

 

“What about rental agreements? People who know where the house is? You don’t cover your tracks well.”

 

“There are no tracks to follow, Mr. Xiao Long, when there are no feet to leave them.” Mercury wanted to laugh at how literal that sentence was, especially in his case, but refrained. She crossed her legs inversely, pursing her lips as she finally managed to flick the lint off her dress and onto the floor. It hovered over the carpet, balancing on a lone, stray fiber. “And what do you think I do with centuries of fortune, anyways?”

“You treat yourself to a nice day at the spa,” Mercury deadpanned. Yang pinched his leg as Salem narrowed her eyes. She looked like she was going to say something, but she refrained. 

 

“The FBI prefers generous donations to actually investigating an old ‘haunted’ house in a small town.” The lint swayed slightly as the fire picked up steam. Luckily they had a screen in place, or the embers would’ve set the gasoline ablaze right then. “Law enforcement prides itself above the law, as we’ve all learned.” 

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Yang asked, eyebrows furrowing. Her fist clenched tighter around Mercury’s. 

 

“Why don’t you just ask your Uncle?” 

 

Qrow cleared his throat. “Why don’t you just continue your super-villain monologue already?”

 

“Did I hit a sore spot, Branwen?” 

 

Raven clicked her tongue, leaning forwards as if she was ready to move somewhere, but her feet remained planted on the ground. 

 

“The real question is why your beloved brother and law didn’t bother to mention the status quo of this lovely residence,” Salem pointed out. 

 

“I mean, he did.” Tai’s shoulders raised awkwardly. “I may have ignored him.”

 

“Wait, he  _ did? _ ” Yang’s voice burst through the malignantly calm mumbles, exiting pursed lips statically. She turned to her father. “You said our Winchester-ing was stupid!”

 

“Well, it was.”

 

Mercury smiled, running his thumb over the blue vein-lines on Yang’s wrist lightly. Her skin was warm, it was weird how she didn’t notice that his wasn’t. His eyes locked with Cinder’s from across the room, she looked almost… 

 

“Well, that was enough chitchat, wasn’t it?” Salem folded her hands into a chapel, before letting her fingers curl downwards into a fisted prayer. Her chin rested on the top, as her eyes traced chalk outlines around each person in the room. 

 

“Not particularly,” Mercury retorted. He braced himself for some sort of magical backlash, as she always supplied in response to his quips, but she remained static. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. 

 

“When they die, they’ll know everything.” She stood up. Mercury’s fists clenched, gripping into Yang’s palm aggressively. She slid it out of his grasp, but didn’t pull away, resting it on top. 

Her hand waved slightly, and the floor opened up underneath the coffee table. Wooden panels separated like puzzle pieces, revealing a void below. The table fell, and they never heard it crash. Qrow grunted as his flask dropped to its end. Taiyang shook a bit with the shifting floor, body deciding whether to balance itself by leaning backwards into the couch, or forwards into oblivion. 

 

Yang noticed this, ripping herself away from Mercury’s side to sprint over the hole to her father. “Dad!” 

 

Once she managed to get him balanced, to turn and meet ink irises, she looked like she was about to say something. Her words were stopped short, however, as a wall erupted from the hole, and all the lights shattered. 

 

Everything was dark.

 

Until it wasn’t, and the random candles sitting atop random surfaces flickered with newfound light. Thank god for Cinder Fall.

 

He looked around, only to see her and, unfortunately, Qrow. “Great.”

 

“What the fuck was that, Mercury?” Qrow spat, hands moving to grab his flask, but never getting there once he remembered that it no longer existed. 

 

“I mean I told you that she was a witch,” he replied, narrowing his eyes. “She literally has the power of like, a kajillion souls.” 

 

“Yeah, well you didn’t tell me she could do that.”

 

“What part of ‘magic in a haunted house’ doesn’t mean the walls rearranging?” He rubbed at his neck, and Qrow could see them. They were faint, a pale purple under translucent skin; thick fingerprints. He stopped staring once Mercury noticed, hand shooting back into his pocket as he glared. “Salem probably knows that we planned on torching her right there.” 

 

Qrow couldn’t see Cinder, but from the way that Mercury looked slightly away from him, nodding and biting the inside of his cheek, he could tell that he wasn't alone with the kid. Thankfully. 

 

Mercury shrugged before pushing jean jacket sleeves up behind his elbows, cracking his knuckles by curling his fists slightly. His toe tapped against the gasoline-coated floor slightly. “We should do it anyways.” 

 

“Ah yes, burn down the house we are all in.” Qrow crossed his arms pointedly. “What a phenomenal plan. Plus, you can’t be the one to burn it. We’ve been down this road before.” 

 

“Get Yang to do it, then.” He moved his foot around in the liquid absentmindedly, tracing the ripples with his eyes. 

 

“Last time I checked, she’s on the other side of the wall.” 

 

“Last time I checked,” Mercury retorted. “So was Watts.” 

 

Qrow didn’t speak, but his eyebrows furrowed and this fist clenched around his biceps. 

 

“We have to continue as if they’re starting a fire over there.” He rested his hand atop the leg of an overturned couch. “And as if the walls didn’t just change here.” 

 

“What about Salem? Where is she?” 

 

Mercury looked to where Cinder supposedly stood, and Qrow followed that gaze to meet eyes with the wall. It was strange, since he didn’t see or hear anything, and yet he knew she was there. There was a portrait of her that used to hang in the bathroom, staring at whoever tried to do their business in peace. The picture was in black and white, and yet you could just tell that her eyes burned gold. That was how it was now— he couldn’t see her, but he knew that she could see him.

 

“She’s probably around.” He frowned, hands gripping at the lining of his pockets. “I would think she’d want to kill Yang, since she’s the only one that can kill her.” 

 

“So we find Yang, then.” Qrow sighed, voice rattling into a groan. 

 

“Yeah.” He started making his way through a seemingly never-ending hallway that hadn’t been there before; that spiraled, almost dreamlike, into the darkness. There was barely any light, but Qrow had a flashlight on his phone, and both Mercury and Cinder could see just fine in the dark. Perks to being dead, he supposed. 

 

“Does this happen often?” Qrow asked. 

 

Mercury stifled a groan at the abhorrent attempt at conversation, refusing to look in the other man’s direction, even as he answered. “Yeah. Not as much as she did before I lived here, though.”

 

“Right.” Qrow traced the wallpaper with his fingertips, never catching on a flaw. “Is it ever going to end?”

 

“Definitely not,” Mercury chuckled. “But we have our ways.”

 

He wasn’t sure if he liked seeing Qrow flinch at any reminder of his post-mortem. On one hand; good fucking riddance. Mercury didn’t care about police station bureaucracies, or the fact that Qrow was barely on desk duty decades ago— Qrow wasn’t dead. However, on the other hand, it bothered him that the guy felt sorry for it, that being around him was a constant reminder of something  _ just _ out of his reach. He didn’t like to think about what it was like before he died.

 

“What ways are those?”

 

“Well, if you weren’t here, I’d just make like Casper, and walk on through these motherfuckers. But not all of us are able to bypass the tangible world,  _ Officer. _ ” He smirked as Cinder chuckled. “So we’re taking the long route. These walls are just repetitions of each other, like that scene in Inception? I don’t know, I just watched that movie with Yang. But yeah, it’s like that. We just have to find the seam and leave.”

 

“The seams between copies.”

 

“Yup.”

 

It was a silent walk, for Qrow at least. Mercury listened to Cinder hum a soft melody, something that his own mother sang to him way back when. Her voice, though usually velveteen and maroon, now sounded like an off key music box, complete with a porcelain ballerina stuck in her routine, glazed over with age, gilded edges spotted with rust. A sad tune, but a comforting one. A hollow motion, but a treasured one. Their footsteps, against the creaky wooden floor, followed no beat, and brought more disharmony into the tune.

 

-

 

_ “Are you not scared, down here? Are you not scared of us?” Cinder asks, head cocked and dripping with an intangible gold. “Of me?” _

 

_ “I’ve been down here a billion times, Cin,” Mercury explains. His legs bend at awkward angles, as he can’t feel them grow stiff. They’re covered with cigarette burn-scars and new scrapes from Marcus’ most recent tirade. The basement is full of dust, but the area flanking the stairs is unsettlingly clear, as  _ _ it’s  _ _ become a home. “You’ve only been here for a bit so it’s new for you.” _

 

_ “I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.” _

 

_ “I think it’s good. I get to hang out with you guys, and I’m used to it.” He picks his feet up and lengthens them so that he can face her. “I’m used to a lot, you know.” _

 

_ “You have to be scared of something.” _

 

_ “I used to be scared of thunderstorms,” he says, clinically. “But now, I think they’re alright. This is the same way.” _

 

_ She wants to argue that he’s barely even thirteen, but she doesn’t. Instead, she just sits with him. Most ghosts are cold, but she still flickers with pure heat, and he leans into it. She can see his face up close, now. The light constellation of freckles that spray across his vaguely crooked nose, the intensity of his expression that blurs as he closes those unyielding eyes. He’s a Fall, for sure. Though he got his still developing frame from his father— the dark hair, the sharp features, the skin that acts as a pale canvas, open for scars.  _

 

_ Her arms wrap around his torso, albeit awkward and intangible. Though he can’t feel her chest vibrate, he can hear her tune. It’s easy, for the first time, to fall asleep.  _

 

-

 

“Why haven’t you told her anything?” Qrow asked, uncharacteristically gentle in his speech. Maybe the silence had gotten to him, and he was hesitant to break it. 

 

“Never felt like a good time.” 

 

“That’s no excuse.”

 

“I have so many rebuttals right now, my man— all about how you’re a fine, upstanding citizen, but that’s no excuse for me being dead, and in this situation to begin with. But, for the sake of brevity, I’ll refrain.” 

 

“Thank you  _ so much  _ for your compassion.”

 

“It’s no problemo.” 

 

Qrow seemed like he was going to say something else. Something that would start this whole big emotional conversation, full of apologies and hate and unforgiving angst, but he didn’t. Instead, he stopped abruptly. 

 

“The wallpaper catches, right here,” he said, pointing to where his finger had stopped on the wall. Dirt and alcohol coated his fingertips lightly, but he had a point. A small seam broke the dark floral pattern halfway through an ornate rose, and started up again at a peony. Back at the beginning of the hallway. 

 

“That it does.”

 

“So now what?”

 

Mercury pulled Qrow away from the wall, and placed his own fingers on the seam. It didn’t work as well as it used to, when he was alive, but he’d gotten okay at negating magic in small doses throughout his life, and death, at the House on Fox Street. It took a few metaphorical breaths from him, but he managed to rip through it. 

 

He looked at Qrow, who seemed at least  _ mildly _ impressed. “Cool, huh?”

 

“You look a bit pale.”

 

“I’m going to assume that that wasn’t a dead joke,” he joked, before he looked down at his hands, which trembled slightly. “I have a limited amount of ghosty power, dude, I’m good.”

 

“Sure.” Qrow turned towards the tear, which didn’t open into void or light, or any of the usual suspects. It merely opened into the kitchen, where a pot of tea still boiled on the stovetop, steam pouring out so intensely that the whistle barely worked. “Shall we?”

 

“Yeah. Probably shouldn’t have left the stove on, huh?”

 

He probably shouldn’t have done a lot of things.

 

The smoke had gotten unbearable, by the time they lifted the kettle from the stove. Mercury hated the smell, and Qrow looked at it with tired eyes. Sometimes things mean so much more than they should. 

 

-

_ Qrow sat at his desk for twenty minutes, staring at nothing, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, almost fully burned. He hadn’t inhaled any of the smoke. His eyes were glazed over with exhaustion, red-rimmed and only able to look back. Look back at what he did wrong. _

_ God, he’d done so much wrong. _

 

_ A few days prior, he had gotten another call from the Fox Street kid. Outside of the calls, Qrow vaguely knew of the kid, who, even from a wheelchair, managed to get into enough trouble that he’d become a regular at the police station. Any and all Mistral-located vandalism was on him and his New Yorker girlfriend (or whatever she was). The first time the kid called, Qrow did everything that he knew to do. Sent a few officers over to figure out if Marcus Black was really any sort of threat, write up a report. Obviously, though, nothing came of it.  _

 

_ After the second call, he thought it would end the same way. So when he brought the matter of this kid screaming on the other end up to the Chief, and then kept quiet when the guy told him to ignore it, he was off the desk within days.  _

 

_ And now today, he meets face to face with his mistake, as a sobbing Emerald Sustrai explains that she hadn’t seen her friend in a week. That she went to his house (he ignored the fact that she actually broke in) and there was nothing to be found. A wheelchair, left forgotten and toppled over in the basement.  _

 

_ He let his cigarette rest gently between his index and middle finger. At this point, a spot had been practically carved out for the thing through subtle callos and accidental embers that called his fingers home. Usually, it comforted him, slow and white, random like watercolour, but sharp and ethereal— but as the smoke crawls through the air like a worm, it’s grotesque, pulsing.  _

 

-

Yang stared at the wall, dumbfounded, for a good few minutes after it had risen up to separate her from Mercury and Qrow. Salem had disappeared as well, probably hidden in another Monster House-esque alcove. Her dad, next to her, stumbled around in an attempt to regain any sort of balance on the still vibrating ground. Meanwhile, Raven had already started towards investigating the walls and the hallways that branched out from their half of the living room. 

 

She took a deep breath before turning to them, blond hair sticking to the sides of her cheeks with sweat. The house was both freezing and scorching at the same time, as if the centuries of death were at war with the claustrophobia and the determination and the fire that each of them carried along with them. “We need to find them— splitting up is the worst thing to do in this situation.”

 

“Mercury can take care of it,” Raven said, grabbing a long piece of wood that had splintered off of some picture frame when the room had split in two and weighing it in her hand to check it’s balance. “Salem will be after you, Yang, since you’re the one that has to burn it all to the ground.”

 

“What do you mean he can take care of it? Salem is in control of this house, apparently— he’s also my age, he’s just as likely to be targeted,” Yang argued. Raven’s face, this sad mix of guilt and determination, turned away with a sigh.

 

“You’re right, Yang,” her dad said. “Splitting up is the worst thing we could do. Plus, Qrow would be really helpful right about now.”

 

“Exactly.” 

 

Raven shook her head as she made her way to the staircase, which spiraled impossibly into darkness. “We need to find and kill Salem. Mercury and Qrow will be fine.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Tai grunted. 

 

_ “You don’t have to be coy about things, Raven Branwen. We all know that this is the end either way.”  _

They all turned towards the mirror, which had fallen onto the floor, cracks spiraling outwards like a spiderweb. Watt’s unusually long legs had distorted in the mirror, his form too tall to fit his torso or head. 

 

“ _ I do apologize for my physical form, but it will be much more efficient if I can communicate with you directly,”  _ he sighed. Everything he said sounded like a snobbish complaint.

 

Behind Tai, a figure appeared, startling everybody, save for Raven. Just like the Watts in the mirror, this form was tall and spidery, and pieces of his suit were visible in various areas, but they were singed. Everything was singed. His moustache, unfortunately, had been burnt away, along with the rest of him. His skin was pitch black, raw red peeking out between the thousands of cracks that expanded and deflated with every movement. The only untouched part of him were his eyes, that same brilliant green that kept him looking human, that kept him looking like  _ Watts, _ much unlike the Grimm down in the basement. So even though they all recoiled in disgust, it was easy to see him as the same man that had appeared to them in the mirror. 

 

“I must agree with Branwen. Mercury will be fine, as will the little policeman. Cinder, the real Cinder, is keeping a close eye on the _favorite_ _child._ ” His voice no longer echoed in an ephemeral transparency. He sounded present, just like anyone else, despite being a literal walking corpse. “I can maneuver through Salem’s trickery just fine, I’ve dealt with my Mother’s hocus pocus for practically a century.”

 

“What about the Grimm?” Raven asked, ignoring the confusion that had built up between Tai and Yang. “You know that it will go straight for Mercury.”

 

“The vengeful sort, I  _ know _ .” Watts looked at his fingers like they hadn’t been burnt to practical ash, as if he’d chipped a nail. “He still has a few tricks up his sleeve. We need to burn this place down before the blonde one gets killed, and we have another Grimm on our hands.”

 

“Fine.”

 

Yang cleared her throat, stomping her foot on the ground to call their attention. “Stop leaving us in the dark,  _ Mom. _ What is happening? What aren’t you telling me?”

 

Raven looked to the ground, front teeth shredding her lower lip to bits.

 

Watts sighed, bringing his fingers up to the bridge of his nose. “I hate to ruin your romance,  _ really _ .”

 

“What do you mean?” Tai practically yelled. 

 

“Tell me, Yang, what you know about the ghosts in this house.”

 

“I know that there have been three fires— you’re all sacrifices, the Fall family, to keep Salem immortal and powerful, or something?” Yang cracked her knuckles against her thigh, before continuing. “You and your sister... you died first. The first fire killed Cinder Fall, your sister’s daughter, in 1934.”

 

“And Neopolitan Fall, she died in 1964,” Tai continued. “And in 1994… There was a fire then, right?”

 

“Yeah, I heard about it in town,” Yang answered. “I don’t think we’ve met the 90s Fall, though.”

 

“But you have, haven’t you?” Watts started towards the staircase, motioning for them to follow. 

 

“I… no, I don’t think so?”

 

Tai seemed to understand, at this point, his face falling into a grim straightness that Yang had only seen a few times before in her life. Once, when she had found out about Raven being her actual mother, and again when she’d woken up in the hospital, sans arm. His voice, dejected, seems to fall into the air, static. It doesn’t carry, it just  _ hangs there  _ like dust. “Mercury… he’s— he’s the last Fall, isn’t he?”

 

“He’s the last Fall,” Watts confirmed. Yang can’t move. He continues. “Now we have to set a  _ bitch on fire _ .”

-

 

_ Mercury woke up surrounded by salt. Every time he tried to breathe, water passed through his lungs. He could taste the brine, but he didn’t… he  _ couldn’t  _ choke on the water. He couldn’t drown. He hung there, floating in the water, weightlessly and breathlessly for an undetermined amount of time, before he managed to push himself out of the water. He sees his corpse, in a trash-bag and caught in some sea grass below him.  _

 

_ He sat on the dock. It felt weird, kicking at the water— feeling the waves spray between his toes. The sun, high in the sky, had been smothered by grey clouds. The only color was the blue light, blinking sadly off the dock. The splintery, damp wood ate into his thighs. Maybe in a few minutes, he could go on a walk for the first time in years, but for now he was stuck thinking about how he was dead.  _

 

_ “You’ll feel stronger in a few months,” a voice called, from behind him. He turned towards it. _

 

_ “Neo.” _

 

_ “In the flesh! Sort of.” She laughed slightly, before taking a seat next to him, the lace of her dress flickering in and out of the light. “I guess that it’s all kind of sort of for you, right now.” _

 

_ “Yeah. At least my legs work.” _

 

_ “That’s one thing.” _

 

_ “Yeah.” _

 

_ “Well, I mean, Salem will be pissed, right?” _

 

_ “Oh, most definitely.” _

 

_ They sat there for a bit, watching the greyness of the clouds shift and change, but never go away. Never grow brighter or darker. They sat in a limbo, watching the sea fight against itself, as the shadows of seagulls chased themselves to the shore. Neo sighed, her mismatched eyes like chocolate and sherbert, her dress like a lily, and her pearls like tiny beads of sunlight in this dead world. The blue light passed through her, and it passed through him, and he felt even colder than before. Why did he feel so goddamn cold? _

 

_ “You know, I always thought that you would be different,” Neo sighed. “I hoped that you could’ve left this old house behind. You seemed like the one to do it.” _

 

_ “She could’ve found me, or I would’ve knocked some chick up somehow and had to return.” He curled his legs inward. It felt strange, though his legs worked again, he still felt numb. He felt numb everywhere.  _

 

_ “Yeah, but I don’t care about Salem.” She wrapped her hands around him. Back when he was alive, god that was weird to say, she would hug him and it would feel like the tangible version of static, embracing him. Far from perfect, but still present. Now, though it was still cold, he felt warmth spread through his chest for a moment, until she broke away. “We all just cared about  _ you _.” _

 

_ “I guess I disappointed, then.” _

 

_ “You could never disappoint us.” She laughed sadly. “Except for maybe Watts.” _

 

_ “He lives to be dissapointed.” _

 

_ “He sure does.” _

 

_ Mercury pursed his lips. “I want to kill him, Neo.” _

 

_ “Who?” _

 

_ “My dad.” He felt an involuntary growl build up in his stomach. “I’m so fucking mad. He  _ killed _ me Neo. I know that I helped with it. I know that I stopped Cinder, but… I don’t want to be dead, Neo. I wanted to do something. I know I told Emerald that I didn’t care but I  _ did _.” _

 

_ “I know you did.” _

 

_ “I want him fucking dead. I want to watch him burn to the ground.” _

 

_ “Then we set the place on fire.” _

 

_ - _

_ - _

_ - _

 

It had happened in an instant. One minute, they were leaving the kitchen, the next minute they were faced with the monstrosity that had haunted Mercury through life and death. It trailed black tar as it raced towards them, and the liquid burnt holes through the oriental rug and into the floor. And in seconds, the Grimm had Mercury pinned against the wall. Qrow leapt into the action, and shot at it with his gun, making as many holes in its hardened, charred skin as he could, but its barrage against Mercury barely slowed. 

 

Somehow, Mercury managed to get leverage on the wall by sinking his hands through it and tangibly grabbing a pipe. He lifted himself out of the Grimm’s grasp, and kicked it as far as he could to run away. 

 

“Lets go Branwen!” Mercury shouted, already bolting up a staircase that had started to piece itself together throughout the house’s movement. 

 

The Grimm attempted to get onto the staircase, but scrambled like a cat climbing a drape, struggling to jump high enough over a hole between stairs, as most of the structure was fragmented. Qrow followed behind, using the creature as clout to catch up. The thing didn’t even seem to notice Qrow, anger solely directed at Mercury.   
  


They kept running, even as the monstrosity’s screams faded enough to warrant sparing their endurance. 

 

“I thought it couldn’t leave the basement?” Qrow yelled, ignoring the stitch in his side as they continued up the stairs and into a random room.

 

“Well, if you didn’t notice, the basement is everywhere. So is the living room. So are all these staircases. No barriers in the Monster House.”

 

“Ah, good to know.”

 

The room was strangely familiar, but Qrow had never seen it before. Structurally, it resembled the room that Yang was staying in; big window, strange shape, same walls. However, decorating the room were posters and drawings— dark clothes littering the floor. The window had no light, completely blacked out by what Qrow could assume was that spiritual tar stuff. He wondered if the house had changed on the outside, or if this was some sort of spiritual realm. 

 

Mercury sat on the bed like he owned it, catching his nonexistent breath. 

 

“Where are we?”

 

“My old room, duh.”

 

“How’d you get up the stairs?”

 

“The old version wasn’t so high up. Remember, I burnt the place down? Salem rebuilt it, and this time the room was up here.” He shrugged. “I like it better, now.”

 

“What about all this stuff?”

 

“Mind games.”

 

Mercury picks up a dart, that had hidden between the blankets of the bed. He had a dartboard up between a Led Zeppelin poster and a drawing of some absurdly gory scene of a woman burning alive, the fire taking an almost human form as its glowing tendrils began to take the shape of hands, gripping at her arms and dragging her further into the pyre. He tossed the dart haphazardly and it went straight through the dartboard. 

 

“Just an illusion, see?”

 

“Did you draw all of these?” Qrow asked, staring at the drawing, pointing to another one, which was a weird family portrait that looked like it had been taken in the 19th century, but all of the people’s faces were missing, void, and their clothing took up centuries worth of style. He recognized the outfit that Mercury was currently wearing on one of the figures. Another seemed to match the wedding outfit of Neopolitan. 

 

“Yeah.”

 

“They’re good.”

 

“I know. I had time, you know.” He motioned towards his desk, where another piece of paper lay. An unfinished drawing took up most of the page, of another faceless person, their legs stripped of flesh and wrapped with barbed wire. Bloody flowers poked out between tendons. “I was an angry person.”

 

“And now?”

 

“I’m still pissed off. Now more than before.”

 

“Before you died?”

 

“Before Yang.” He lay down, closing his eyes. “Back when I was alive, I had just figured out my life— as much as I could. I had a friend, I had goals, expectations. And now, just when I’m starting to live, I have to die again.”

 

“But you’ve wanted to leave.”

 

“I still do. I’m just mad about it.”

 

“I’m sorry, still.” Qrow sighed, running his hand over the drawing, feeling both the illusion, and the paper that was once actually there. He picked up a picture frame, holding a polaroid of Mercury and Emerald at some wall they’d tagged. They were sticking their tongues out and they squinted as they laughed. “I could’ve done something.”

 

“Yeah, you fucking could’ve.” Mercury sat up. 

 

“I was selfish. I didn’t… I didn’t know that things had gotten so…”

 

“I don’t even know where she is, you know. Emerald. I don’t know if I want her to be over it. Over me. If I want her to have forgotten, or if I want her to still cry when she thinks about me. I hate that I think about it like that. We’re all selfish. We’ve all lost things.”

 

“Then—”

 

“I’m just mad that it was  _ you _ , Qrow.” He pursed his lips. “I’m mad that I fucking  _ idolized _ you. That this scrappy badass that came from dark places and liked dark things and cool bands and cool hair was just like everybody else.”

 

He didn’t know that. And he didn’t say anything else. Because he couldn’t.

 

-

-

-

-

_ Salem was definitely pissed at Mercury, even though he didn’t murder himself. After she did some, frankly, fucked up spiritual magic and scared the living, or dying, daylights out of him, she went off to some place where she could fume and come up with a new plan of action. How would she fuck people over without anymore lineage?  _

 

_ Either way, it didn’t detract from Mercury’s plan. He spent hours and hours post-mortem trying to bring his form into the physical plane. Every once in awhile, he’d get his hand to actually move something, or he’d get a piece of hair visible to the non-dead world. It was frustrating, truly, when Emerald came by, looking for him.  _

 

_ He tried to call out her name, tried to touch her and tell her that he was right there. That he was dead and that it was Marcus Black that threw him to the bottom of the sea. But he couldn’t. She walked to his room, looking over the drawings, and pursing her lips. She always did that when she wanted to figure something out.  _

 

_ She went down into the basement, knowing that Marcus would lock him in there sometimes. She saw the wheelchair— she didn’t see him, standing over it and yelling as loud as he could.  _

 

_ Emerald was walking out the door, tears in her eyes, when he fucking lost it. For the first time, he grabbed something, a mug on the table, and sent it flying across the room. It shattered against the wall. Maybe if she’d stayed two seconds longer, she would’ve seen it. She would’ve seen  _ him _.  _

 

_ “I’m sorry,” Cinder said sadly, from behind him. _

 

_ “Yeah. Me too.” _

_ - _

_ - _

_ - _

 

It hurt to walk. Her side burned, and her eyes burned, and her chest felt like it had already been desecrated, turned to ash. They had to keep moving, even when she knew, now. The stairs went on forever, and even though she’d climbed them before, each step seemed to be hundreds of feet tall. Her legs reached for the platforms, expecting to fall through the floor. She wanted to fall into the floor. 

 

Tai grabbed her hand, tightly. His hand is warm, but he’s shaking too. “I know, sweetheart. I feel it too.”

 

Watts narrowed his eyes, before looking back at them. “The Grimm is nearby. Mercury and Qrow are in the attic room.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

“I have my ways.”

 

“I’m sure you  _ all do _ ,” Yang growled. 

 

They get to a hallway that’s made of dead ends, but still seems to go on forever, taking a moment to catch their breaths. 

 

“How did he even show himself, anyways?” Tai asked. He has millions of questions that Yang hadn’t even had the energy to think about. “Without looking like you. No offense.”

 

“He didn’t die in a fire. He set it post-mortem,” Raven explained darkly. 

 

“His father strangled him to death— threw his body out into the ocean. It was not a pretty sight to watch, trust me on that.” One of the walls has a mirror on it, and Watts sticks his hand through, creating a weird liquidy door. “The kid is definitely a Fall— the  _ vengeful  _ sort.”

 

“So he burnt his father to death?” Tai wondered, both impressed and disgusted.

 

“Who do you think the Grimm is?” Watts sighed. “Honestly that beast has been quite a problem for everyone. It’s usually trapped in the basement, but we’d prefer it stuck in the dirt somewhere.”

 

“That’s probably why you shouldn’t have fucked down there,” Raven deadpanned. 

 

“You too?” Yang groaned, before gasping. “Oh my fuck, I had sex with a ghost. In front of his ghost dad?”

 

“In front of _ all of us. _ ” 

 

“Goddamn, I’m smooth.”

 

The words didn’t mean much, but she felt lighter, talking about it as if it were a joke. As if everything wasn’t the absolute worst, right then. 

 

They continue through the mirror door, which Watts explained was a cool ghost trick he could do to maneuver around the house. They got to the attic room, where Yang had been staying, but no one was there. Just her empty bed, her messy suitcase, and her list on the countertop. 

 

“They’re not here,” Raven observed. “Maybe you don’t have your ways after all.”

 

“No, they’re here— just not the tangible version.” Watts shrugs. “This is the physical plane, the actual room, void of illusions. Look.” 

 

He pointed to the window, where Yang could see the street clearly. There are a few kids playing with a ball on another house’s front lawn. The sun had started to set. 

 

“They’re in the spiritual version. Where Salem has control. Where things are all… the way they were over there. The mirrors can’t bring us to spiritual places. They can probably see us. Perks of limbo. It’s almost poetic, isn’t it? ”

 

“It’s almost stupid,” Yang sighed, stuffing her hands into her pocket. She felt something cold on her arm, and looked to the source— seeing nothing. She knew though. She knew who it was. “I know you’re dead, if you can hear me. Fuck you, by the way.”

 

The cold presence left, after that. 

 

In her pocket lay a lighter. The one that they planned to torch the place with. After pulling it out, she ran her thumb across its surface, letting a small flame rise and fall, flickering like lungs. “We can burn shit here, though, right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Could we not, before?” Tai asked.   
  


“Technically, we could’ve. However,” Watts paused to fasten a nonexistent tie. “Nothing would actually burn.”

 

From the corner of her eye, Yang saw, for the briefest of moments, the shifting of the list on her desk, and her eyes widened slightly. She handed the lighter over to her dad, instructing him to keep the flame on, and walked over to the desk to pick the paper up.

 

“So, like this?” She held the list over the the flame, and it stayed there, perfectly white and untarnished by the flame’s bite. “We’re still in Salem’s control, aren’t we?”

 

“We shouldn’t be, unless…” 

 

“The mirror could’ve been fake, too, you know.”

 

“And so is this,” Raven exclaimed, looking at the window. 

 

Quickly, she swung the picture frame into the glass, shattering the image of a road, of happiness, of the sun, into a void space. As the window broke, so did the illusion of Yang’s room. Now, they stood in an adjacent version, covered in posters and black clothes and intricately morose artworks, where they could see both Qrow and Mercury staring straight at them.

 

“Thank fuck you figured it out. I was scared that I’d have to actually talk to Watts.” Mercury sighed. 

 

Before Yang can even look out the window to see Salem, sitting cross legged, eyes closed as she meditated on, likely, this illusion, she’s slapping Mercury as hard as she can. She doesn’t have the mindset to notice him flinch slightly, or to say anything much of anything to his face. It’s easy to figure out that this is his room, that these are his memories. No one else would have so many Nirvana posters. No one else would have darts holding up their posters instead of pushpins or tape. No one else would’ve brought life into such a dead, fucking house. 

 

“You fucking lied to me,” she whispered.

 

He didn’t try to explain himself. “Yeah, I did.”

 

They’re interrupted by a gunshot, as Qrow sends a bullet straight towards Salem. They turned to see the piece of metal stop, mid air, and two eyes opening to meet theirs. Though she wore Cinder’s form, still, her eyes no longer shared that molten gold. Black sclera, red irises, pure malice. 

 

“You’re in my hands now. Each of you.” Her voice sounded soft, just barely above a whisper, but it shot straight through each of their ears, as if amplified by their own heads. Deathly calm, but bubbling with something that no one could identify, even if they’d known her for centuries. “You’re all moldable, killable, soft. You’d be stronger, if you were one of mine.”   
  


“Fucking creepy bitch,” Mercury muttered.

 

“Even you, young Mercury,” Salem mused, head snapping slightly to look directly at him. Pieces of Cinder’s skin started to contort, as if not meant for that movement. Sickly white peeks through, as Cinder becomes more and more translucent in the light. Though Salem still sat, still, she seemed closer. Sharper. “You were nothing until you were  _ mine _ .”

 

Yang could see Mercury shaking. But she could also see the dart that he fingered in his left hand. 

 

“I was alive, though.” He countered, before throwing the dart right at her face. Yang expected it not to hit, or for it to end up right next to the bullet, still stopped in mid air, now behind Salem. However, it stuck itself right into her chest. 

 

“Nice trick,” Qrow chuckled, impressed. “More of that spirit bullshit?”

 

“She has power over the spiritual world, but I can nullify that.” Mercury shrugs. “Doesn’t do much but fuel my ego, though.”

 

Though Yang was still confused, and though she still absolutely couldn’t stand him, Mercury’s words gave her an idea. A stupid idea.

 

**_“You know nothing of power.”_ ** Salem, seething, ripped the dart out of her chest. Her whispers now sounded like growls, like hissing, as if she were a snake. She started to unfurl like one too, Cinders skin peeled open like a chrysalis, revealing pieces of eggshell skin and pulsing black veins. Salem’s true form was bony and pale, like a human’s muscle had been ripped away, leaving skin, arteries, and bones. Parts of her skin were spread tightly over her body, other areas saw sagging and tears, still somewhat melded to the husk of Cinder. “ **_You only know weakness and death.”_ **

 

Yang, as Salem continued talking, grabbed ahold of Mercury’s hand. He looked at her, confused, since he definitely wasn’t in her good graces, whatsoever, at the moment. His eyes widened when he felt the metal in her hands. The lighter. 

 

“ **_The things that make you strong, they’re all mine. I gave them to you.”_ ** She moved forwards, physically, now. Her body jerked forwards, zombie like, catlike, her joints moved inhumanly. She was far from human, at this point. “ **_And I can take them all away. I did it to Amber, I did it to thousands. Don’t think you’re special because I spared your death.”_ **

 

She leaps into Mercury’s face, like a pale wil o’ wisp, opening her mouth to eat him alive. 

 

“Now!” Yang screams, shoving the lighter upwards and flicking it on. Both her and Mercury’s hand are wrapped around it, as the flame bit at Salem’s nose. She didn’t have time to move away, as the fire somehow flared up even higher, going off like a bomb in their hands. When Mercury looked to the space between them, mouthing  _ thanks _ , Yang could only assume that another ghost was responsible for the rush. It didn’t matter, anyways, because now the fire was climbing up the ceiling and eating into the walls. 

 

“Nullify the fire so that it can be tangible…” Mercury mumbled. “Smart.”

 

“I know.” She let go of his hand the moment that the fire no longer needed a source to continue its feast of the house. Yang turned to everyone. “We have to get out of here.”

 

“Here,” Mercury says, pointing to his closet, where a large mirror lay. “This one isn’t Salem’s fake, either. It’s a part of both rooms.”

 

Watts lets them through the mirror, before proceeding to not follow. “If this works, I’ll die best here.”

 

Mercury nodded, before shaking Watt’s soot stained hand. “See you on the other side, then.”

 

The mirror closes behind them, and they’re back in the original room. The window, which Raven breaks to check, is real. The sky outside shows traces of stars, mostly just patches of grey and purple clouds, as the moon rises. 

 

“Don’t you need to be back there too?” Tai asked Mercury. 

 

“Nah,” he shrugged, pointing towards the ocean. “My body’s out there. I can get that burnt separately to leave.”

 

“Why didn’t you?” Yang tried to keep her voice steady, but didn’t manage to. “You could’ve left, and you didn’t.”

 

“They’re my family, man.” He put his hand on the wall, where the drawing of the family portrait had hung. He didn’t need to say anything else. She understood. She would do anything for Ruby. 

 

She remembers Ruby saying that the ghosts would’ve sent a liezon to communicate with her. To help free them. It only occurred to her now, just how right her sister was.

 

“Right. So, we should leave,” Qrow said, uncomfortable. He pointed to the room, how it was on fire. 

 

They bolted down the stairs, keeping their eyes out for the Grimm, or for Salem. The basement is already filled with fire. 

 

“Thank fuck,” Raven mumbles. “That’s one monster taken care of.”

  
  


They find Salem in the living room, waiting for them, as the flames crawl up her legs. She takes a step towards the group, hands outstretched like broken paper fans, mouth like a rose of teeth as she smiles. “ **_You thought you could burn me?”_ **

 

“Well, you seem to be burning right now,  _ so,”  _ Mercury retorts, before he’s sent flying into a wall. The fire doesn’t seem to touch him. 

 

“ **_I will add you to my collection,”_ ** she whispers, as her arm detaches from her elbow and flies towards Yang’s neck, holding her up in the air as it strangles her.  **_“You’ve never been on the other side of this, have you, Mercury? Watching someone lose their life,”_ ** her fingernails squeeze into Yang’s neck and she can’t. Breathe.  **_“Watching them suffocate, knowing that they’ll go down, completely Helpless.”_ **

 

Yang coughs. Qrow shoots. Raven charges with her picture frame. Tai grabs at her feet to bring her down. Mercury can’t move.

 

**_“I’m sure it hurts, and I’m sure you know all about it. I’m sure all of you Know How Mortal You Are.”_ **

 

Her vision is fading, and she knows that in a second, her neck is going to snap. Her body wants to hyperventilate, because she’s so goddamn scared that she’s gonna die that nothing else matters, but she can’t. She can’t panic, because her airways are blocked by this spider of a hand. By this spider of a woman. She’s a fly in the center of this web. The web is on fire, but she’s still going to end up dead and devoured by the end of it. 

 

Until she isn’t. 

 

Until there’s a woman with golden eyes, halfway burnt into nothingness, thick dark hair floating almost ethereally as she appears in front of where Mercury lies on the floor. Until she walks towards Yang and burns the hand away. And though Salem is already starting towards the door, ready to bolt and leave everyone to die, it’s not… it’s not until Cinder Fall glows with fire, and wraps her arms around the pale woman, grappling her onto the floor and into the flames, which rise around her like an angel’s wings, that Yang knows it’s going to be over.

 

Mercury seems to snap out of his fear, knowing what’s going to happen and screams as Cinder burns right alongside her grandmother. As the fire that he helped create, ate her away before he could tell her what she meant to him. 

 

But both of them burn, and both of them burn differently.

 

Cinder burns like she was already made of ash, like she’s only coming apart now. She disintegrates into gold flakes, with a smile on her face. She looks ethereal, and Yang can see her soul through her spiritual skin. It’s like magma, like karma, like a nimbus, as the fire almost seems to cradle her head. She calls the fire home, she calls protection home. Her lips mouth words,  _ names _ , into Salem’s ear. 

 

Salem burns like a wax sculpture. Her skin melts off of her face, revealing more and more layers of tar. Her mouth extends, and her eyes begin to bleed out of her skull. As her white hair fizzles away, the pieces of her burning skull open to release thousands of beetles that take flight before crashing into embers and falling to the floor. She falls apart, skin rotting in the fire. Her screams fit her form. It’s disgustingly beautiful to watch.

 

They leave the house, watching it fall to the ground. The only sound is the wind whistling through the trees, and the crackling of wood as it collapses and burns. From the heart of the house, the fire begins to change color. Like watercolour, a bright emerald bleeds into the glow, and Salem’s screams merely fade into the whistling of dry air. Smoke dances through the air, even blacker than the sky, which had welcomed the night and the waning moon into her arms. 

 

Stars peeked through holes in the smoke.

 

Stars peeked through everybody’s eyes. 

 

Yang doesn’t know why she only cried now, but tears fall down her cheeks as her chest bubbles with a potion of relief, anger and sadness. She looks at Qrow, who has turned away. She looks at Raven, who throws her makeshift weapon into the fire, watching as it falls apart before her eyes. She looks at her father, who doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, wringing his hands together and coughing every so often. And she looks at Mercury.

 

Mercury’s lower lip quivers. 

 

And then, he walks away.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> djaskldjalksd i have no explanation for myself  
> I plan to upload the last chapter within the next few weeks depending on my schedule. PLEASE COMMENT YO IM A SLUT FOR FEEDBACK. 
> 
> I KNOW THE PlOT IS CONVOLUTED I TRIED
> 
> Thanks Shooty-booties for complimenting me into writing this chapter. :0


	8. The Summer Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Limbo of Night and Day was both   
> beautiful and  
> sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know it's gonna be a doozy when the chapter has the same title as the whole fic.
> 
> If you're the kind of person that can read while listening to music this is a playlist of what I listened to while writing this that fits the angst somewhat. https://open.spotify.com/user/fanaticalparadox/playlist/3evULrs8i2vIadXJ1b5E6u?si=bIv70uWnTmuIPJHM_2P8zw
> 
> And here's the more condensed version of a playlist for the whole fic if you're interested.  
> https://open.spotify.com/user/fanaticalparadox/playlist/1wQJjtCqkrgLeb2hZpA50l?si=fvmQXR73Sg-JxzmCbXAa9w

**Chapter 8:** The Summer Side

 

Yang didn’t go after him. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to, or even if she could. She knew that he was dead, and that those words felt wrong, even as they cycled through her head on repeat. On one hand, a few things clicked into place, a few mysteries and vague words that had before seemed like dark ramblings, by a dark person. And on the other was the life that she felt when they kissed, the  _ person _ that she’d grown to care for, and the creeping suspicion that all of it was a ruse. Either way, it was over. Because even if Mercury were alive, Yang would be gone by the end of summer.

 

She overheard Qrow talking about it, anyway. He said something about “leaving Mercury to his own business until he wanted to show himself.” Did the spiritual version of the house also have wreckage? Or was it completely gone? Yang had seen the drawings in his room, she had seen the pictures of him and his friend with the green hair, had seen stacks of books in the corner for all sorts of classes. All traces of Mercury Black were dead and gone now. She never knew that person— she only knew his skeleton. 

 

The fire trucks arrived eventually, though the house had practically crumbled into ash by the time they turned the hoses on. Maybe the house fell faster with its creator, than it would’ve otherwise. The firemen paid no mind to the jade flames, especially since the green tint had begun to fade into the smoke over time. Though the fire dried out her eyes, and the heat assaulted her skin; Yang shivered, teeth clattering together like a drumroll, spine convulsing as she tried to figure out if she was sad or not. One of the firemen pulled her away and threw a blanket over her shoulders. Or it was her dad. She wasn’t in the mindset to know.

 

Was this feeling from the Fall’s suffering? From their final sacrifice for freedom and justice? Was this nausea because Cinder burnt away with a smile? Was it because Mercury was dead, too? The grotesque that burned under Salem’s eyes left imprints under Yang’s eyelids, like sunspots. She always wanted a summer romance, quick to take hold, full of fire, and empty by the end. Ironic, really, that even with a house full of ghosts and mutual trauma, it happened in the same way.

 

Raven stayed behind, to aid with damage control, and to figure out how they would legally explain the house’s destruction, and the utter lack of a current owner, now that Salem had died. Qrow led Yang and her father into his car, driving them back to his apartment. Her dad stayed uncharacteristically silent throughout, not picking up awkward small-talk, or attempting to goad information from his brother in law. Yang hadn’t seen Qrow’s face look this way before, either. Lips taught, and throat bobbing with anxiety; eyes intense, but unfocused. Was it relief or guilt, that he felt right then? The trial, or the error?

 

She stared out the window, watching as the town passed by. It was one of those places with more sidewalks than roads. One of those places with a farmers market that everybody sold at, and nobody bought from. One of those places with legends. She got in too deep, with one of them. Maybe there were more ghosts, lurking behind the old statue in town square, or more witches, hiding in one of those mom and pop specialty stores— not that they even mattered. 

 

Qrow’s apartment was… what some special sorts of people would call “home-y.” Yang remembered, back when she and Ruby were younger, playing “the floor is lava” would lose any challenge, when there was barely any floor to evade. The place wasn’t messy, not by a longshot. Qrow was an impersonal guy, whose only personal affects were the people he cared about, and an AC/DC poster he’d bought half-off at a 7-11.

 

The pull-out couch was already in use, made up neatly, with that signature Raven Branwen touch of clinical sharpness that Yang had once idolized. With all of the things that had happened, she’d forgotten almost completely about  _ that _ problem.

 

The summer, full of salty haze and unsolved mysteries, felt like a dream, and as she took a seat on the recliner shoved way into a corner, to give the pull-out enough room, and sunk into its old, broken in leather, the reality of everything dawned on her. 

 

Eventually, her father broke through her shock, which had taken ahold of her with a numb stupor. She felt the cold condensation of an aluminium Pepsi can against her shoulder, and blinked a few times to clear the fuzziness that had gathered around her vision.

 

“You okay, kiddo?” He sat down across from her, sinking into the springy mattress of the pull-out couch. 

 

She accepted his offer, grabbing the Pepsi and placing the can between her thighs to pry the tab-top open one-handed, not having to look at her father to know that he was holding himself back from helping. He loved helping. “I’ve been worse.”

 

The soda slipped down her throat, clearing all the dry soot that had coated her insides away— further into her stomach. It was refreshing, so she downed half of it in one go, but she couldn’t taste it. The saccharine bubbles; just an afterthought, a vague hint of sugar that could’ve been there. 

 

“You have,” he sighed, head bobbing as he looked away. His eyes were unfocused, present only in their position. Yang knew what they saw. They saw her in a hospital bed, they saw the shrapnel in her side, they saw her cry when she woke up. “But I’m not talking about back then.”

 

“That’s a first.” 

 

That must’ve stung, because she heard his whole body flinch, shaking the bed. It let out a cacophonous screech of rusty springs and shaky legs. “I’m sorry, Yang. If I hadn’t dragged you out here, none of this would’ve happened.”

 

“I don’t… I don’t blame you for  _ that. _ Even though you knew about the people who died here.” She rubbed her temple in frustration. “Though maybe you could’ve looked their names up, or something.”

 

He chuckled, under his breath. “Yeah, maybe.”

 

“I don’t blame you for what happened here, honestly. The Falls? Salem? Merc? They were here before anything we could’ve changed.” She paused, glancing at Qrow, who stood on the apartment’s balcony, smoking a cigarette that he’d probably found between the seat cushions of his car. “For the most part.”

 

“Still not clear on  _ that _ story,” he muttered. 

 

“I don’t think I’d like the whole thing.” Yang slumped further back into her chair. “I don’t want to hate my Uncle.”

 

“You think you’d hate him?” Tai wondered.

 

“There’s a possibility? It’s been a long time… but not for someone like Mercury, you know?” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “I just realized that he hasn’t grown, or  _ anything _ . It’s been twenty years, but he’s still sixteen. If I died right now, I’d still be pissed at  _ him  _ in twenty ghost-years for lying to me. Especially if I was constantly surrounded by reminders.”

 

“You’re angry at him? At Mercury?”

 

“Well, yeah? I’m livid.” She scrunched her face up. “He preached all this life advice about the world despite not living in it. He  _ used  _ me to burn down the house.”

 

Tai stroked his chin, a light stubble had built up over the past few days, and his hand sounded like sandpaper against it. “Are you sure about that?”

 

“You heard him earlier. He could leave whenever he wanted, and he  _ wanted _ . His only goal was freeing the other Falls.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I mean, obviously it’s understandable, but… I thought that I’d finally found someone that… understood me? Even if it was only for a summer.”

 

“It probably started that way. I’m sure he got attached, though. It’s impossible not to.” 

 

“ _ Dad.” _

 

“I’m serious, sweetheart,” he chuckled. “You have life about you. I’m sure he fell for it. It’s how I fell for Summer, how you’re so attached to your sister.”

 

“Not that it matters,” she said, simply. 

 

“Not that it matters,” he repeated, softly. Sadly.

 

“If he wasn’t dead, though… would you have approved?”

 

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “If it’s worth anything, I wish that we could’ve found out.”

 

“Yeah. Me too.”

 

They sat there in silence for a good while. The mattress squeaked every so often, and Qrow would cough on his smoke, once in awhile from the balcony, but between them, it was silent. Eventually, the door clicked open, and Raven entered the room. She’d pulled her hair up into a loose bun, and her light skin was coated in a layer of soot. 

 

After she walked by them wordlessly, joining Qrow on the balcony in some strange solidarity, Tai cleared his throat. 

 

“Yang—”

 

She cut him off abruptly with a soft “Yes?”

 

“There are things we need to fix. That  _ I  _ need to fix.”

 

“Yeah, we do. You do.” She said, quickly, again. 

 

Any other words they could’ve shared were best left unsaid. At least until neither of them were focused on the dead elephants in the room. Until Mistral was behind them. But it helped to think about it; a time when they’d be okay. When their bond wasn’t clouded up with this whole year of sadness and anger. He couldn’t fix her; protect her. She couldn’t shrug him off. 

 

They sat at a stalemate, before she stood up to go take a shower.

 

-

-

-

Qrow eventually found Mercury in some corner of the woods behind the burnt corpse of the Fall house. Police tape and a few debris-clearing personnel covered the ruins, but let him through easily enough. It wasn’t his first Fall gig, though it’d be his last. The morning looked over the trees with new eyes, as if the forest floor had been shielded from its view for years. July wouldn’t take hold until the sun had fully taken root in the sky. Until then, the ocean reigned, and the air was cold.  The scent of ash and salt mixed with the fading dew, blowing past him in chilly gusts. 

 

After Yang and Tai talked, or stared, at one another for what seemed like hours, Yang had insisted she go back to the house to clear things up with Mercury. Qrow wasn’t sure if that meant a passionate feelings-sharing session, or her punching his face. He’d always thought that his niece was predictable, but he couldn’t tell what she felt about any of this, or if she even knew. He convinced her to wait until the morning— a fresh day, with a fresh mind. Mercury would still be there, too. Qrow knew that he wouldn’t leave until everything was settled, because when he died, nothing was. 

 

Mercury sat cross-legged on a bed of old leaves that had built up over years of autumns and packed snow and vernal roots peeking through the holes, hammer in hand as he beat pieces of burnt wood into the vaguely soft earth. A pile of wood lain next to him, he worked diligently, though his hands shook with a sort of unintentional intensity. He didn’t look back, even as he acknowledged Qrow’s presence with a grunt.

 

“Why aren’t you happy?” Qrow asked, gruffly. “Shouldn’t you be glad to finally be free of it all?”

 

He didn’t answer. The repeated hammering of metal against wood reverberated through the forest, somehow lost by the time it reached the street. 

 

“You stayed for them, and now they’re free.” He leaned against a tree, feeling its coarse bark fray the back of his old jean jacket. The cigarette fell between his lips before he had time to wonder if he needed a smoke. 

 

A few seconds plowed by, taken up by the banging of Mercury’s hammer and the clicking of Qrow’s faulty lighter, before Mercury finally spoke. 

 

“I’m the only one with a grave, you know?”  _ Bang _ . The first piece of wood seemed firm in the ground, now. “ ‘Cause Emerald didn’t let it go until the city gave me one.”

 

“I remember that.”

 

“You told me about it.” He grabbed another board, readjusting his weight and position to start hammering it in.  “Or Raven told me. Dunno.”

 

“It was probably Raven.”

 

“Yeah.”  _ Bang _ . “Anyways, I thought I’d complete the set. I used to make graves for them when I was a kid, but it was just twigs and shit. The storms would shred them apart.” 

 

_ Bang. _

 

“So you’re making a graveyard?”

 

“In theory.” He put the hammer down for a moment to crack his knuckles against his thigh. Even after so long, he still retained human habits like that. It was comforting. Or, it was sad. “Some dickbag monopoly man is probably gonna buy the lot anyways, to build a condo complex or some shit. Roll over all these century old trees. A few pieces of wood won’t hold up, but… I guess I’m the symbolic type.”

 

“You  _ are  _ an artist.”

 

“In  _ theory _ ,” he repeated. 

 

Qrow chuckled. “I’m serious, kid. You weren’t the model person or student, but you would’ve gone places.”

 

“Yeah, maybe.”

 

Possibly not the best topic of discussion. The ‘what if you weren’t dead’ conversation wasn’t a fun one, especially since Mercury loved feeling bitter about it and Qrow loved feeling guilty over it. 

 

“Why are you here, anyways?” He finally asked, back to hammering a makeshift grave. As the light slowly got brighter with the sunrise, Qrow could see chicken scratch names engraved into each board. A ghost named Amber had gone up first, Qrow recognized the name, but she had probably been one of the souls that Salem had disposed of. “Want to feel better about yourself— make amends?”

 

“Any forgiveness you give me won’t make me feel better about myself.” He tried his lighter again, finally sending a spark up onto his now-damp cigarette. “You’re not my only mistake.”

 

“That’s both comforting and incredibly sad.”  _ Bang.  _

 

“I’m glad that you can recognize emotion in some capacity.”

 

“I’d say that was a burn, but  _ that’s  _ already been taken care of.” He muttered. “Like twenty times. Can you do me a favor?”

 

“What?” It was less of a ‘what is the favor?’ sort of question, and more of a ‘what, you’re asking me for something that’s not leaving you alone to brood?’ sort of question. 

 

“Yeah, you heard me.”  _ Bang _ . “Under all that wood, there’s a journal. Pick it up.”

 

“Okay?” He did just that. The journal was covered in old stickers and years worth of wear-and-tear. 

 

“I need you to get it to Emerald.” He explained. “There’s a note on the first page proving that I’m real-boy Mercury. You can figure out how to explain all this stuff to her. You will. You owe me that much.”

 

Qrow didn’t reply. Instead, he flipped lazily through the book. Entries littered the pages, written in various inks and smudgy pencils. Most of the pages had drawings in the margins; drawings of abstract emotions, or of one of the Falls in the house. Each page had a date, and the entries went on for years. It wasn’t a diary, though. It was just a long series of letters that were never sent. That never got replies. The most recent note, with ink still saturated and dark, was written on the inside cover— less messy than its counterparts. 

 

He skimmed the first note. It read:

 

_ Emmy, _

 

_ Yo. This “letter” is pages and pages long, because I’ve had so much time to think about this, trapped in this place. But this page is the one I wrote last, sort of to preface all of it, since it really was just a diary for awhile. Addressed to you. You probably won’t even get to read it because like… either you’ve cut yourself off from Mistral (I certainly would) or you’re dead or this letter burns up with everything else. In case you do get it, and you don’t believe that it was me who wrote it because you’re fucking sane and don’t believe in ghosts, I’ll recount some fun shit that only I would know about and then you’ll believe me. Or you won’t. I’ll pretend that you will. _

 

_ So like, there was this one time that you probably forgot because you’re like… thirty right now, which is weird, but it was when we were at school and I was drawing over that dickbag Henry’s desk, and you found this collection of lovenotes that he was stealing from people’s lockers, and like the assholes we were, we started publishing them in the school newspaper because you practically owned that club, and it caused this whole conspiracy in the school about who sent which letter and stuff. And like, no one knew this but us, it turned out that one of the notes was from a teacher to a student and he told us to shut down our beautiful prank.  _

 

_ I remember that you ended up blackmailing him and it was fucking glorious. I wonder how that teacher is doing. Probably in jail, or living in a trailer park. Man.  _

 

_ I saw you come into my house looking for me. I was watching. Every time. I tried to call out but it was never loud enough. I never could do it fast enough. I’m sorry. More than anything, I wanted to talk to you at least once. Say goodbye properly. But… I couldn’t. And though I personally am saddened that we’ll never see each other again, I can’t help but feel like you thinking I was completely dead was a sign that you should leave. I heard you went to college and stuff. Got a good gig in Boston. Hopefully you got a girlfriend.  _

 

_ You would’ve stayed here forever if you knew that I was stuck here. I know you would’ve. You’re selfless like that. I know I would’ve done the same for you. We were dependant on each other, and though I know that my subsequent murder was not my fault, I’m so fucking sorry that I left you in fucking Mistral all alone. I hope you’re happy, truly, now.  _

 

_ If you do believe the letter, and you read through it, don’t be mad at yourself for never coming back. You always have to keep moving forward, with or without me. In this world, it has to be the latter. So read it and weep, my friend. Maybe we’ll meet again. _

 

_ -Your Partner in Crime and the Author of about a kajillion pages worth of notes to you because you were the only friend I ever had.  _

 

Mercury knew that Qrow was reading it. He waited for a few minutes of gravemaking to speak again.

 

“She’s probably forgotten, or gotten over me, since it’s been so long. But I want her to know. You know?”

  
Qrow let out a sharp exhale, and watched the smoke curl away from his mouth in lazy spirals. “Yeah. I guess so.”

 

“I wrote letters to everyone else, too.”  _ Bang _ . “You’ll find them eventually.”

 

“I know that I said it already, kid, and that it won’t do jack shit for the situation, but I’m sorry.”

 

“I know.” He stood up, brushing the dirt off of his pants and standing next to Qrow, weight on his right foot as he gestured for a cigarette. Qrow raised an eyebrow, before passing him the last in his pack. He got the lighter going after a few clicks. “And ‘m not a kid, you know. I’m technically not that much younger than you are.”

 

“You still listen to Nirvana because you relate to the songs. You don’t grow up until those things stop meaning something to you.”

 

Even after lighting the cigarette, Mercury twirled the lighter between his fingers, flicking the flame on and off in an imperfect rhythm, though the flint only sparked irregularly. The thing must’ve been pretty old. 

 

“Maybe I’m glad I didn’t live to stop caring, then.”

 

“You learn to care about other things, I think.”

 

“Like what?”

 

He didn’t have an answer.

 

-

-

-

 

Yang woke up with a stiff neck, and a few seconds of ignorant bliss. She’d forgotten, for a happy moment, the tribulations of the previous day. After blinking away the final clutches of the night, she remembered the melting body of Salem, the green fire, Mercury’s back as he walked into the forest without a word. Her dad still snored loudly from the floor where he slept, so she tip-toed out into the kitchen to get some orange juice or something.

Qrow had promised her a trip to the house, but his shoes were missing from the foyer. If she had the energy, she’d get mad about it, but she was sure that Mercury wouldn’t leave without giving her an explanation. He couldn’t— since Yang was the only person that could set fire to his corpse when he wanted to go. She had time to figure it out. Whether she could let it go, let  _ him  _ go. 

 

Raven sat in the living room, having already put away the fold-out couch. She dressed sharply, as usual, with that big city chic that looked more unrealistic in this town than the ghosts that lived in it. Yang looked like a dead yellow rat next to her mother. Anyone would. Raven’s legs, covered with sheer black stockings, were crossed as she flipped through a newspaper one-handed, using the other hand to sip a cup of long-cold tea. The newspaper’s headline, poking out beneath Raven’s thumb, read in big bold letters:  **HOUSE ON FOX STREET BURNED FOR GOOD? GREEN FLAMES TAKE THE FALL MANOR.**

 

“Yang,” Raven called. Her voice always sounded like she were giving an ultimatum. Even if it were one word. 

 

“Yeah?” Yang shuffled further into the light, covering her eyes for a moment to let them adjust to the rays that cut through the gap between window shades. “Did… Did Uncle Qrow leave already?”

 

She hummed in reply. Yang guessed that it was an affirmation. 

 

“Ah. Well… I’m gonna go get myself some— some orange juice? Yeah. I’m gonna do that.”

 

“Wait.”

“Yeah?”

 

“We’re getting breakfast.” She folded the newspaper up and tossed it aside. It landed perfectly on the coffee table in a picturesque position next to her empty cup. “There’s a cafe in town that I’ve wanted to take you to.”

 

“You’re taking me to breakfast?” Yang asked, incredulity stabbing through her words.

 

“Don’t sound so surprised. Get dressed— it’s a casual establishment, but I don’t want you looking like a ragamuffin.”

 

Yang almost laughed. “Dad always used to call me that.”

 

“It was because of your hair, wasn’t it?” Raven asked. Her face was still neutral, but there was a smile in her voice.

 

“I never wanted to cut it, but there was a point where I never brushed it, either. So I looked like one of those kids from Oliver Twist. Or an oompa loompa.”

 

“I can see that.” Before she could allow herself to laugh, Raven spoke again. “So, make yourself presentable, and we can go. Qrow has nothing edible in this place that’s legal for you to partake in.”

 

“For a police officer, that’s troubling.” 

 

She found that Raven had left some clothes on top of her suitcase, which were probably a better alternative to her two and a half outfits she’d brought along with her. The shirt was long sleeved, thoughtfully, and the shorts had just enough rips in them to be worth more than a hundred dollars. They were either her mom’s clothes, or something that she’d bought specifically for Yang. 

 

It was hard, tying the sleeve into a knot, flashing back to that night when she and Mercury had first truly met. When they’d sat on the dock and fell prey to blue lights and rain. The whole experience played out differently, when she realized that they’d been essentially standing over his corpse. 

 

His words rang through her head. 

 

_ “People die all the time, though,”  _ he’d said. _ “But everyone just gets scared when it’s houses.” _

 

In hindsight, things made more sense now. But she wished that it had remained a mystery. 

 

_ “No one knows?”  _

 

_ “No one asked.” _

 

She shouldn’t have asked. God, why did she ask? 

 

Raven showed her to the car. Yang sat in the front seat, this time, and they drove in silence to the cafe, leaving the rising sun behind them.

-

-

-

When Qrow got home, the fan was the only sound in the apartment. He found Taiyang on the couch, still dressed in the outfit he wore the day before, face still slightly smeared with soot. His reading glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose, which jutted out slightly from when he broke it in highschool, as he read the scrawl on a crumpled piece of paper. He could only guess what it was.

 

He folded up his glasses when he finished the note. Qrow decided not to notice the sigh in Tai’s shoulders, the intentional stiffness of his fingers. “Yang left to eat breakfast with Raven. I think they need to talk.”

 

“You’re usually against it, though.”

 

“And I still am.”

 

“So?”

 

“It doesn’t matter what  _ I  _ think about it,” Tai muttered, handing the piece of paper to Qrow, who grabbed it reluctantly. “I found it in my luggage. There’s one for you, and one for Yang too, but I’m not going to read those.”

 

“Good call.”

 

Obviously, the note was shorter than the one he’d written for Emerald. The handwriting was a bit more intentional, less like it had been written through stream of consciousness ink on paper, and more like he’d planned out every word beforehand. 

 

_ Taiyang, _

 

_ Heh, I boned your daughter in the basement. Pun intended. _

 

_ -Merc “bane of your existence” Black _

 

_ P.S. I wish I had a dad like you. Take care of her, you know? Like she doesn’t need protecting, obviously, but she needs a shoulder to cry on. That always helped me, even if the shoulders I got were corporeal. You want her to trust you SO BADLY— to love you, but you can’t see that she does, already. More than anything in the world. Hold onto that. And don’t break it. It hurts her when she tries to hate you.  _

 

_ I don’t know much about your whole weird family drama. I have plenty of my own, yo. But it shouldn’t get in the way of what actually matters. I’m usually a “found family” sort of guy, since my dad was a real prick, but the strongest wood out there is built from your family tree, so don’t burn it down like I did. Unless you’re trapped in a purgatory like prison by your evil witch great great great great grandmother. Then, you should totally go ahead and torch it. _

 

He handed the paper back when he finished reading, folding it over his finger a bit like teachers do when passing bad test grades out. Tai took it with shaking hands, and placed it on his lap. 

 

“You should read yours,” Tai said, eventually, passing Qrow an unopened envelope. He took it, but merely placed it in his pocket. “In case you need to reply, before it’s too late.” 

 

“Do you need to reply?” Qrow asked. “Or did he get the last word in?”

 

“You know when someone says something that means nothing to them, but becomes everything to you?” 

 

“I guess.”

 

“Something about Mercury feels that way. I probably won’t miss the kid, he was a pain in the ass and I never knew him. But… he’ll probably stick around.” He picked up the letter again, eyes taking it in without reading the words. 

“What do you mean by that?”

 

“I’m going to try to be better for Yang.” Tai sighed. “I need to be. It took me so long to figure out how to raise two daughters practically on my own— and I got good at it. I figured out how to play dress up, how to listen to them talk about their crushes, how to help them when they finally got their periods. I was a good dad.”

 

“You still are.”

 

“They’ve changed, Qrow. I haven’t.”

 

“Sometimes it’s hard to change, Tai.”

 

“They don’t need that guy anymore. I need to figure it out all over again.”

 

There was a moment of complete silence, where even the fan made no noise against the air, before Qrow said, “You don’t have to be alone for it, this time.”

 

“What?”

 

“I… I want to help you. And not like in the ‘fun drunk uncle who spoils the kids’ way. I want to be there in the way that I haven’t been.”

 

“What…” He paused. “Back in ‘94, what happened between you and Mercury? The full story.”

 

“I knew about what went on in that house, Tai. Not about the ghosts, but about the fucking crippled kid getting beat up by his dad, about the police station getting paid off to leave it alone.” The letter now felt like a bowling ball in his pocket. Heavy— accusatory. “I thought I knew everything. Scared of the new job, or  _ something _ , I don’t know. Either way, he’s—”

 

“Dead?”

 

“Dead.”

 

“You said ‘cripple,’ earlier. What did you mean by that?” Tai asked randomly. “Mercury didn’t seem to have any issues.”

 

“Well, he couldn’t walk when he was alive,” Qrow explained. “Didn’t stop him from figuring out how to tag all the weird spots, but yeah. Nasty car crash. We know now that his mother did it purposefully to kill them both.”

 

“To eliminate the last Falls?”

 

“I certainly hope that  _ that  _ was all of it.” Qrow shoved his hands into his pockets, and fingered the corner of the envelope absentmindedly. “But he survived. He must’ve been eight or nine. I hadn’t moved here until he was about thirteen, so I don’t know any more than what rumors and files have told me.”

 

“He didn’t tell you any of it? Even after over twenty years, you still don’t know him.”

 

“When we first met, after he’d died, it was when I was investigating the house after he’d burned his father alive.” 

 

“Good riddance.”

 

“That it was.” Qrow affirmed. “It was the first time he’d managed to fully reveal himself physically. He punched me square across the jaw. Sent me flying.”

 

“... Good riddance.”

 

“That it was.” He paused, before realizing that the silence was too unwelcoming to the socially inept, and continued. “Most of our conversations were through Raven. They didn’t really care about one another, but he respected her, and she liked his weird ghost mom Cinder, so it worked out.”

 

“He didn’t write a letter for her. I couldn’t find it.”

 

“He probably told her in person. Or gave her the letter when she stayed behind. Not that she’ll ever tell us.”

 

“You think that she’ll do right by Yang?”

 

“She wants to. But she’s worse than you, when it comes to change.”

 

“I wonder where Yang got it from, then.”

 

“Got what?” Qrow asked.

 

“Her uncanny ability to always move forward,” Tai answered. 

 

“Maybe she got it from herself.”

 

They laughed until they were silent, until Qrow meandered to his room to read the letter, and until the fan was, once again, the only sound in the apartment.

 

-

-

-

At first, Yang thought that Raven was literally just taking her to a Starbucks. They drove up to a building that shared its architecture with strip malls in Arizona, with big Starbucks lettering at the front. The parking lot was pretty empty, probably because most of the people in the town went to church on Sunday mornings, and it was pretty early. As Raven pulled into a space and turned off the ignition, Yang rose an eyebrow.

 

“Maybe I shouldn’t have dressed up,” she deadpanned.

 

Without looking in her direction, Raven explained, “it’s not actually a Starbucks, Yang, don’t worry. They just never took the sign down when the new place went in.”

 

When they entered the building, it became immediately apparent that this was definitely not a Starbucks. The place looked like a strange mish-mosh of old consignment store and parisian cafe, with tchotchkes and antiques lining the walls, lit by quaint tiffany glass lamps. The tables weren’t consistent in their design— a few diner booths and a few gilded, gothic, carved monstrosities. It felt warm, like a home away from home that she could never get bored of.

 

“I told you that you’d like it. I loved it when we first moved here.”

 

“You were right.” She strode over to a collection of cuckoo clocks that ticked in arhythmic patterns. “I guess you’re my mom, after all.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“We should probably talk about that.” 

 

“Yeah.” Raven looked away, before motioning for Yang to sit down at one of the booths. “Pick a seat, I’ll go order for us. Anything you want?”

 

“Just pick something.”

 

“Alright.”

 

She chose a seat in the far corner, right where the window cut off into the wall, which made an interesting slice of light on the table. Behind her was a bulletin board of pictures— old polaroids that spanned the years, layered on top of each other like at a Walls Ice Cream. Some of the pictures were vague creepy antique photos, others were groupshots of people enjoying random moments of the cafe. Remembering that Raven mentioned the place being here since she moved to Mistral, Yang decided to look through for something… something before Mercury had died. 

 

Eventually, after moving a few pictures away, she found something. A shitty overexposed polaroid of two teenagers with bad dye jobs and arms covered in Sharpie-drawn tattoos with birthday hats and party horns hanging out of their mouths like cigarettes. Mercury was on the right, with his sharp, gangly features and his impossibly dark eyes. The girl must’ve been his friend that he mentioned, Yang couldn’t remember her name, but she was definitely a lesbian. Green cropped hair, biker jacket and smirk at her lips. Must’ve been fun. 

 

In smeared ballpoint pen, at the bottom of the picture, someone had written:  _ Mercury’s birthday ‘93.  _

 

She tucked the photo away, again. Letting it stay buried, even though she’d rather take it for herself. When Yang turned around, Raven already sat in front of her, perfectly silent. 

 

“They used to come here?” Yang asked.

 

“It was the go-to place for the Hot Topic kids. Hole-in-the walls like this weren’t trendy back then.” Raven slid a cup of iced coffee in front of her. “This is what I always get. Tell me how you like it.”

 

She took a sip, and recoiled a bit from the sweetness. It was good, vanilla and comforting, like a mother’s touch. The irony wasn’t lost on her. “I always took you for the straight-black coffee type,” Yang observed.

 

“I suppose there was a time where I tried to fit my taste in drink to my personality, but, I’ve found that life can be quite boring if you play by its rules,” Raven replied, twirling the ice around with her straw into an almost whirlpool. 

 

“Is that why you left?” She didn’t mean to say it so blatantly. Usually, talks like these were supposed to build up to that final question. Yang knew, somewhat, why Raven had walked out on her and her father, because she had some of those same impulses. Those same desires to be unshackled by responsibility. But she still needed some sort of closure, from this summer. She definitely wouldn’t get that from her father, or Mercury. 

 

Raven took a long sip before answering, clearing her throat as she tried to gather her thoughts.

 

“I suppose,” she said. “I wasn’t ready to have a child. I don’t think I ever can be. Sometimes people aren’t meant for things.”

 

“Maybe you could’ve used a condom.”

 

“Your dad and I liked things rougher, than that.”

 

Yang gagged. “That’s definitely too much information.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“Are you?”

 

“Am I what?”

 

“Are you sorry?”

 

“I don’t regret it. If I’d stayed with your father, both of us would’ve been unhappy. Ruby wouldn’t have even been born. You would’ve grown up being the unwanted child.”

 

“I still was.”

 

“I’m sorry about  _ that _ .” 

 

“Are you?” 

 

“Qrow and I, we were there too.” She tilted her head back slightly. “We weren’t lucky enough to ask our parents about it, though.”

 

“What would you want to hear, from them?”

 

“My real parents?” Raven asked, continuing when Yang nodded in response. “Probably nothing. I’d just want them to hear me. I’d want them to know what it felt like.”

 

“I don’t think I got that from you,” Yang muttered. “I care… what you think of me. I  _ want  _ you to say something that will fix this. Maybe it’s just optimism.”

 

“Do you know why I came down here from Boston?” Raven asked, finally separating her hands from her coffee. 

 

“To… keep us from getting burned alive by Salem’s weird witchy ghost stuff?” 

 

“Partially. Though you didn’t really need me, did you?” Raven stared out the window, eyes suddenly interested in the way that the trees would twirl in the breeze, rather than her daughter in front of her. “Not for that.”

 

“You certainly helped.”

 

“Maybe. But no, that was an excuse.” Raven finally met Yang’s gaze with her own. “I came down here to see you.”

 

“Me?”

 

“I never… After you lost your arm, I didn’t do much of anything that I could’ve. I wanted to make sure you were… okay.”

 

“That’s not your responsibility.”

 

“A part of me wants it to be. I’m not your mother in anything but biology, Summer was. I’m just here. But I want to be here for you, as much as I can.”

 

“What if I don’t want you to be?”

 

“Then, I guess I deserve that.”

 

“Yeah you do.”

 

They stopped talking for a few moments as a random couple entered the cafe, interrupted by the singsong chiming of the door opening. The two ordered at the counter and took a seat on the opposite side of the room.

 

“Do you want to know what I think of you, Raven Branwen?” Yang asked, rhetorically. “I think that you’re sad. You’re scared of being out of control, even of situations that you dropped on their ass years ago.”

 

Raven didn’t reply.

 

“But I still want you in my life. I still want someone like you to show me things like these cafes hidden behind Starbucks signs, to care about me.” Raven looked up, and Yang continued. “You’re selfish. You want a daughter without putting the work in. But so am I— I don’t want to be like you, I don’t want to leave things behind me without caring about them, you know? But I have that part of me that will always be Raven, too. And I need someone to tell me how to fix it.”

 

“I can be a pretty good anti-role model.”

 

There no longer lay a tension in the air. Neither of them felt suffocated by the vanilla embrace of their iced coffees, and neither of them knew what to do next. It felt right. 

 

“I’m sure that you want to leave Mistral behind you too,” Raven said. “And the house on Fox Street.”

 

“I don’t like thinking about it,” Yang admitted. “It was all fun and games until my boyfriend was Bruce Willis the whole time. Or is he my ex-boyfriend? I’m not sure.”

 

“Did you break up?”

 

“No, but like, he’s dead.”

 

“Not until you burn him away.” 

 

“He wants me to burn him away.”

 

“No, he wants you to burn his body,” Raven said, vaguely. “If you need to learn anything from my mistakes, learn this: things tend to work out when you don’t forget what you let go.”

 

They finished their coffee and left the cafe in silence. Yang felt a million pounds lighter, even though she could feel the weight of the coffee in her stomach, and now, after a change of heart, the weight of the polaroid in her pocket. 

 

-

-

-

 

_ Qrow, _

 

_ I don’t forgive you. It’s probably petty as shit, because you’ve changed considerably since twenty odd years ago, but still. I remember when you and your sister came into town, started working in the law enforcement stuff. Emerald thought Raven was hot and I thought you were punk-rock. Other than the occasional side eye and those phone calls I never really talked to you before I hated you. We’ve both had a long time to think about whether we’re begrudging allies, enemies, friends, or whatnot, but you’re gonna have the rest of your life to think about it, so I’m just gonna tell you what I’ve figured out. _

 

_ You’re an incredibly imperfect person. You use your flaws as a crutch, as an excuse. You blame yourself for the universe that you think is on your shoulders, but defend yourself when it falls and crushes everybody around you. I see in you what I saw in my father. That’s why I hated you. Because the more and more I got to know you, the more I figured out that you were only human. You drink like he did.  _

 

_ But you’re kind. And I hate that. I hate that you’re a good fucking person. Because I look at those guilty fucking eyes and I just want to rip my head off because it’s so damn hard to blame someone like that.  _

 

_ So yeah, those are my feelings. You probably find me annoying, but you can’t think about it because you indirectly killed me, so you start to paint me in your mind as this innocent victim of that aforementioned crash.  _

 

_ I’m not. _

 

_ I’m a shitty person too. A victim? Yeah, technically. But I tagged dicks on buildings and disrespected authority and hated everything. I’d do all those things now, if I could.  _

 

_ You grew up, though. And I stayed the same, so. I still fucking blame you. But it’s probably for something else. _

 

_ -Casper the friendly (still up for debate) ghost  _

 

-

-

-

 

**_“_ ** _ Hello, who is this?” _

 

“Is this Emerald Sustrai speaking?”

 

_ “Yes… is this Dave from the printer? I told you that I didn’t want the Red Sox game on the front page this time, we have enough losses on our belt this season already.” _

 

“No, it’s not Dave. It’s Qrow Branwen.”

 

_ “...” _

 

“I know that it’s—”

 

“ _ Give me a good reason not to hang up in the next few seconds before I hang up in the next few seconds.” _

 

“We… Uh, the house burned down again.”

 

“ _ Of course it did. I saw the article. Really brought me back. You know, to when my friend went missing and you did jack shit about it?” _

 

_ “ _ In our investigation we… uh, found his body on the property.”

 

“ _ You…” _

 

“It was in the ocean. Tied to the dock, tangled in fishing wire and stuff.”

 

“ _ How’d it happen?” _

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“ _ How’d he end up dying?” _

 

“Autopsy shows signs of strangulation. A broken neck.”

 

“ _ Right. Of course it was his father.”  _

 

“He doesn’t have a next of kin to claim it.”

 

“ _ I’ll… I’ll be there in a few hours. Luckily it’s my day off.” _

 

“Right. Okay, well, I can pick you up at the train station. Show you the house, what’s left of it, if you want.”

 

“ _ Yeah. Okay, I’m going to hang up now.” _

 

-

-

-

Mercury didn’t expect to see Qrow again that day, at least, not without a furious Yang in tow. But he showed up in his stupid car that Mercury could hear from a mile away, and walked right back up to the gravesite that he’d been working on. After nailing all the markers into the ground, he spent a while at each grave coming up with eulogies that no one would hear. Time worked differently for him, after he died. Sometimes a year would take a second, and a second would take an hour. This summer was the first time things felt like they were before all of that, until he sat in front of the end of the line, and everything moved a mile a minute, once again. 

 

He flashed into tangibility when he saw Qrow approach, despite every last fiber of his being telling him to stay invisible. 

 

“What do you want?” 

 

“I wanted to give this back to you,” Qrow said, pushing the journal into his arms. Mercury raised an eyebrow.

 

“What am I supposed to do with it?” He flipped through the pages, and found the note he’d written to Qrow, nestled in the middle. 

 

“Give it to her yourself.”

 

“How am I supposed to—”

 

He was cut off when he saw her, standing still and frozen between the trees. She looked different than he remembered, because she’d grown up, obviously. A few faint wrinkles around her eyes, and a less rebellious haircut. She kept it dyed green, though. It was Emerald, even stronger than when she left Mistral. Their words, lost, neither were sure who ran first, into the other’s arms. 

 

“You were dead,” she said.

 

“I still am.”

 

He didn’t notice as Qrow walked away, to leave them there. 

 

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” he admitted. “Your hair’s still green.”

 

“It grew on me.”

 

“Most hair does.” 

 

“Are you real?”

 

“Technically.”

 

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

 

“Yeah.” He placed the journal in her hands. “This explains it all. I never expected to give it to you in person.”

 

“I’ll read it when you’re not right here in front of me.”

 

“Good call. That’d be really fucking awkward.”

 

“Ghosts aren’t real.”

 

“I’m a ghost, though.”

 

“Or you’re a dream. It’s been awhile since I dreamed about this.”

 

“Well, if I’m a dream, we can skip all of the disbelief, then.”

 

“Yeah. Let’s just… talk.”

 

“Did you get over me?”

 

“I moved on. I didn’t get over it, though.”

 

“Can you tell me about it? I’ve always wondered, what you’re doing with your life.”

 

“I’m the editor in chief of the Boston Globe.”

“Wow, that’s rad.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Get a girlfriend?”

 

“Wife, actually.”

 

“Damn, you were right, you  _ do  _ have game,” he joked. “Tell me about her.”

 

“Her name is Sienna. She was another journalist from India, we met at a few collaboration sort of things between our companies and it just… continued from there.”

 

“Any kids?”

 

“We’re foster parents, but I don’t think we can deal with tiny children.”

 

“There are plenty of those in the world.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What’s the world like? Yang told me a bit about it, but most of it was her thinking I was a nowadays teen, so I’m still quite in the dark.”

 

“It’s bigger than ever. You would like it. Plenty of places to go, things to do, ways to do them. Even for people who couldn’t walk to them. Who’s Yang?”

 

“Qrow’s niece. We had a thing.”

 

“A thing? Tell me more.”

 

“Who knew old people could even like gossip?”

 

“I’m not  _ old _ , I’ve aged like a fine wine, my good sir.”

 

“Yeah, sure.”

 

“You’re avoiding the question.”

 

“Was I?”

 

“Tell me about Yang.”

 

“We fucked in front of my ghost family in the basement that used to be my personal hell, so there’s that.”

 

“Absolutely wonderful.”

 

“Yep. She’s the kind of person that would find it hotter after finding out I was dead, I’m sure.”

 

“Just your type.”   
  


“Yeah. It’s a shame that it’s over.”

 

“When are you…”

 

“Gone? When things are settled, I guess. Yang has to burn my body.”

 

“The body is…”

 

“Under the dock in a body bag.”

 

“Have you…”

 

“Looked at it? Yeah. Who can say that they’ve held their own skull in their hands? No one but me.”

 

“Alas, poor Yorik, I knew him well Horatio.”

 

“Alas.”

 

They continued talking like that, for awhile. Or it was for only a few minutes. Time didn’t make any sense when it came to friendships like theirs, and it didn’t work for ghosts like him. Every second had more substance than his years alone. 

 

Another tangent, about how he would’ve loved the movie Space Jam, which came out two years after he’d died, arose. He told her that there was this one family that lived in the house for awhile (before dying, obviously) that would watch all sorts of shows, which he enjoyed. But otherwise, he’d been cut off from entertainment, since all of his comics burnt away when he killed his dad. 

 

Afterwards, they stopped talking for a moment to breathe, Emerald placed her hand on his chest. “This is real, right? Can you promise that it’s real?”

 

“You couldn’t come up with such riveting dialogue, Em.”

 

“I’ve gotten better at writing, asshole.”

 

“Well, if this is fake, then at least you’re good enough to trick yourself.”

 

“Since when were you an optimist?”

 

“I’ve never looked on the bright side.”

 

“No, you haven’t. And that’s why we were friends.”

 

“We still are friends… right? You haven’t forgotten me all the way, have you?”

 

“Some days I won’t think about you, yes. It’s hard staying… staying sad for so long. But you haven’t… You’re never going to stop being important to me.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

“I’m glad that I’m not disappointed.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well, sometimes when someone dies, you romanticise them. Remember things in a different light. I’m glad that I remembered you right.”

 

“Yeah. Me too.”

 

“I want to stay here.”

 

“You have to go back to Boston and your wife, you know. Do you tell her about me?”

 

“She knows that you inspired me to become a journalist.”

 

“Really, I did?”

 

“At first, I wanted to write books and stuff, but I found that the truth was far more interesting. Far more important.”

 

“You were right.”

 

“And I was right.”

 

They said goodbye, after a few more minute-hours. She couldn’t leave her life for someone that didn’t even exist anymore, no matter how much she wanted to. He told her himself. 

 

“Name a cat after me, will you?” He asked, as she turned to walk away, for good.

 

“I already have,” she whispered. 

 

He smiled and she left and the wind caught them both as they cried separately, knowing that those were the last words they’d say to one another, for real, this time.

 

-

-

-

Yang and Raven got back in the late afternoon. After leaving the cafe, they’d gone on a silent road trip across the coastline. Yang looked at the brilliant sea, how it spanned endless miles, how the birds would chase their own reflections, and how the clouds seemed to drift down just to touch its surface.

 

She understood it now, why Mercury said that  _ “sometimes it’s better to remember how small you are,”  _ because she felt so miniscule, in Raven’s old car, staring at the sea with an old photo in her hands, and she felt free for the first time in her life. Sometimes, even when the destination was phenomenally more important, the open window and landscape provided so much more potential. When they got back into town, and pulled into the driveway outside of Qrow’s, Yang felt almost disappointed that it was over. 

 

The sun had yet to set, even though the moon had already started to rise. Maybe it missed the day before it ended, or it was scared of more change. The limbo of night and day was both beautiful and sad, in some ways, Yang thought. 

 

Her summer in Mistral had definitely made her more philosophical, if anything. 

 

Her father waited by the door for her to enter, and, when she’d finally taken off her shoes, and Raven had walked into the kitchen out of earsight, he asked, “How’d it go?”

 

“Great.”

 

“For real great, or sarcastic great?”

 

“I think it’s for real.”

 

“Good.”

 

Qrow had already gotten home, and Yang overheard him talking to Raven about Mercury’s friend Emerald. How he’d brought her to talk with him, how he thought that he’d be okay, now. That he figured himself out, a bit. 

 

“Guess Qrow got the last word,” Tai commented. 

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Mercury wrote some letters for everyone. They’re all very mic-drop emotional, last words sort of thing.”

 

“Did—”

 

“Yeah, you got a letter.”

 

“Can I see it?”

 

“Of course.”

 

She grabbed the envelope. It felt strange in her hand, both cold and on fire at the same time. 

 

Yang read the letter alone, in the bathroom, so that no one could see her cry. She knew that she’d cry. 

 

_ Yang, _

 

_ If you’re reading this, I’m already dead. If you’re not reading this, I’m still dead but like whatever. I really didn’t know what to write in this letter, to be completely honest. Because most of these notes were for people that I knew before I kicked the metaphorical bucket and I just realized that we’ve literally only known each other for like a month or so. Time works weird. Everything about this is weird. I’m writing this before we try to bring down Salem. I don’t know if we end up doing that but like — if they’re finally free, and I’m gone by the time you read this, we probably succeeded. Good for us, I guess.  _

 

_ You’re probably mad that I lied to you. OR you’re mad that you can’t be mad that I lied to you because you can’t be mad at someone who’s dead. I mean, you can if they’re Hitler or some shit but like… yeah. _

 

_ My body isn’t all FUBARed like the rest of us. It’s out in the ocean in a body bag under the docks. I’ll leave when I’m ready. I used to think I was ready, but I’m not so sure right now. _

 

_ I’m sure that I or somebody already told you about my dad and what he did to me. Or you could’ve figured it out on your own, it’s not that hard. I don’t know if I did tell you about my mom, though. She’s where I got the ghost from. Like, I’m a Fall on her side. She was SUPPOSED to have a kid in 1994 when she was 30 years old, to die at Salem’s hands like the rest of them. But that didn’t happen. I don’t really know how I came out when she was only sixteen but I can certainly guess. I don’t remember much about her, to be honest. I can’t even remember her face. Probably looks like a Fall. _

 

_ But there’s one thing that I keep thinking back to, about her. It was before the accident, where she actually died, so I could still walk and shit (hopefully I told you about that too). I must’ve been maybe five or six. My dad was being an ass, throwing shit at her downstairs (no change there), and I could hear everything. It was raining really hard. So hard that every single raindrop was a nail in my fucking skull. Eventually he passed out and she came upstairs to see if I was asleep. She found me crying. _

 

_ She said it’d be okay, like moms are supposed to, and I remember saying that nothing was okay, and she just cried right alongside me. And she pointed out the window, into the black sky.  _

 

_ She told me not to look at the bright side, not to be optimistic. That I’d only end up disappointed. That there wasn’t good in everything, sometimes. But, she told me not to look at the dark side (or whatever the opposite of the bright side is. I’m digging the Star Wars vibe though, so we can go with that) because I’d miss out on something great. She said to look on the summer side, instead. _

 

_ And I never knew what she meant by that. I’d think about it constantly, even after she died and I forgot what those words sounded like on her tongue. Sometimes I’d ask Emerald (my best friend at the time) about it. Or I’d ask Cinder. But I never knew. Until you. _

 

_ You always look at the world with fresh eyes. Always ready to bask in the sun and admire the silver linings. But you don’t expect goodness. You don’t view it as a right. You’re drawn to the night sky and the cold rain— you’re enchanted by the morbid, you want to understand the evil, even as you conquer it.  _

 

_ Because it’s always hot in July. It’s bright and blaring and loud, but people always look at it with such longing. And then it will rain for days on end. Hide from it, or run outside and get drenched— you always choose the path less travelled. _

 

_ I’m selfish, aren’t I? I don’t regret anything that I did with you (including our basement endeavor), because this between us made me want to live again. I was sort of done with being alive when I finally hit the hay forever. I was done being dead after the novelty of working legs wore off. I was there to free them, you know? That was all that I could define myself with. All of us Falls weren’t anything without each other.  _

 

_ But, I don’t know if it was because I got cut off from fully becoming something great, or if it’s because you’re so uniquely bright in your own universe, but there’s just something in me that I never got to unlock until I met you. It’s pretty fucking sappy, but it won’t bite me in the ass anyways, so it doesn’t really matter.  _

 

_ I think that I’m in love with you. _

 

_ I wish you wouldn’t reciprocate that because it won’t last forever. It can’t. And you’ll probably cry when I’m finally gone because you’re always so attached to those you care about. I’m sorry. _

 

_ The world is only going to beat you down, and you can’t keep getting up like nothing happened. If you take anything away from this, from me— I want you to take those punches and grow with them. I want you to fight for what you care about and never forget the scars that they left behind. That  _ I  _ left behind. I want you to keep looking at the summer side, Yang.  _

 

_ And maybe then you’ll finally be happy. _

 

_ -The literal skeleton in your closet, Mercury.  _

 

By the time she’d read the letter multiple times, the sun had already started to dip into the horizon. After wiping the tears away from her face, she ran into the living room and grabbed Qrow’s car keys, waving them in his face.

 

“Take me to the house. Now.”

 

The drive wasn’t introspective, this time. It wasn’t sweeping landscapes and internal debate about whether she would care about him being gone. Because she had her answer, now. She had it all figured out. It was unfair. The world was unfair. But, she’d rather live with it, than let him die with it.

 

Qrow stayed in the car. No one was at the house— apparently there’d be construction workers there in a few days to get rid of the burnt remains, but now, only she could see the ashes. The anatomy of the house, its thousands of hallways and staircases, its alcoves and secrets, was smaller when she wasn’t inside of it. 

 

The air got cooler as she walked to the ocean. She knew he’d be there, musing over the intricacies of life as he sat over his death. Her sneakers sunk into the forest floor, and she didn’t wipe the sweat from her brow. She let it build up and fall onto her lapel without a wasted movement. The trees scattered at the shoreline. He waited for her, wind whipping his hair around his face as if he were tangible. As if he were anything more than a memory.

 

She took a seat next to him without a word.

 

“Who knew that summer could be so fucking cold, huh?” He mused. 

 

“Seasons, Mercury,” she chuckled, “are a social construct.”

 

“Touche.”

 

She looked at his hands, they played with a lighter that she recognized as Qrow’s. He flicked it on and off, it only worked sometimes, and the wind would blow out the flame before he could admire it.

 

The blue light gleamed, superlunary, against his face. She could see the tiny scars that were still there from life, and the bruises on his neck held different meaning, now. 

 

“You know,” she said, clearing her throat. “What you said in your letter, about the summer side.”

 

“Cheesy and dumb, huh?”

 

“No.” She shook her head, not sure if he could see it. His eyes were still trained on the sea. “It reminded me of my mother.”

 

“Which one?”

 

“Her name was Summer. What you said about it… it just reminded me of her. Or it was just the name. She liked to be bright, too, but she kept it real.”

 

“Maybe that’s where you got it from. Wish I could meet her.”

 

“Maybe you will.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

Mercury looked to her, though their eye content was constantly broken by the salt in their face. He pointed to the shore. “I dragged my body up there.”

 

He was right. She didn’t see it before, but there was a large barnacle-covered tarp-y thing, sitting between the forest and the deep. There was a jug of gasoline next to it. Her observation was cut off by cold metal on top of her hand. The lighter.

She didn’t need to ask, to know that he was ready.

 

They walked over to the bag, almost pushed by the wind. Even though the air cut across her skin, she somehow knew that it wouldn’t extinguish the flames. He poured the gasoline until there wasn’t any left to pour. After he put the jug down, Yang kissed him, wordlessly. His lips tasted cold and salty, but it worked. 

 

She flicked the lighter a few times before letting it fall into the gas. It erupted in flames.

 

Yang looked up, to see that he was still there.

 

“It’ll take a bit before it burns me up all the way. We can talk, if you want.”

 

So they talked. They walked back up to the edge of the dock, looked at the blossoming night, and talked. 

 

“You know,” he said. “The cocaine in the basement?”

 

“What about it?”

 

“When my dad used to lock me up there overnight, Neo would break out the fun stuff.”

 

“Weren’t you a kid?”

 

“Obviously not until I was old enough to want it. But I thought it was a fun anecdote.”

 

She laughed, brushing her hair out of her face, even though it returned to torment her right afterwards. He was right. “That’s fucking rad.”

 

“It was.”

 

“Why didn’t you just tell me? I would’ve helped, either way.”

 

“Maybe I wanted to have some fun first.”

 

“We definitely had fun.”

 

Every once in awhile, her nose would pick up the faint smell of smoke, before brushing it away and replacing it with something new. She’d ignore it. He’d ignore it, too.

“So you got in a car crash too?” She asked, moving her stump slightly. 

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You understand, for real, don’t you?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Does it get better?”

 

“I couldn’t say.”

 

Yang nodded, biting her lip, either to stop words, or to stop tears. She wasn’t sure. 

 

“You’re going to college in a bit, aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah. Not sure what I want to do,” she replied. “I want to travel, or help people. I don’t want to be bored.”

 

“I’ll drink to that,” he chuckled. “You should try journalism. I’ve heard it works wonders.”

 

“I’ll look into it.” 

 

The waves looked like brushstrokes of darkness, under the sublime sky. The froth crumbled over stray kelp that tossed and turned in the current. The blue light reflected on the water like its own sort of moon. 

 

“Hey, Mercury?” She asked, hoping she was loud enough to break through the wind. She was.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Me too.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“What you wrote in your letter.” She almost had to scream, as the wind built up, faster and faster. She could tell, from the smell, that the fire had not been fazed. 

 

The world went silent, though when she whispered: “I think I love you.” 

 

Yang turned to him, but he was already gone. 

 

She ignored the tears building up, the stars that trickled down her cheeks, and smiled. Maybe he got what he wanted after all. Because as the sunlight fully fell below the world, and finally let go, it was not blue, but  _ green _ light that that pooled over the ocean, in the end. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO YEAH THAT WAS A CHAPTER 2 CALLBACK AND YES I MADE THE GHOST FIRE GREEN JUST FOR THAT ENDING SORRY MOTHERFUCKERS.   
> Anyways this is the first fic i've ever like... FINISHED FINISHED outside of one shots and im so so proud of it so i hope that you enjoyed it!!! I'm curious what everybody's favorite scene from this chapter was so if you comment (pleasepleaseplease comment).   
> Roll credits time!!  
> THANK YOU to glitteringeva and shipperoftrashyships for betaing all the chapters like bro im so sorry you had to deal with my issues with tenses, most of my fics are in present tense so it gets confusing going back to normal writing riP.  
> ALSO THANK YOU EVA FOR BEING MY SOUNDBOARD FOR THIS FIC. Little did you know, originally i was gonna reveal merc as a ghost way earlier than i did and it would've been bad ksakdlsaj. Also thanks eva for yelling at me in german i hope that this was sad enough.
> 
> Thank you once again shooty-booties on tumblr for providing my attention whore ass with compliments and brought this fic back into my field of vision, inspiring me to finish it. I would still be holding out on chapter fucking 7 if not for that art you sent me akldjsklaj
> 
> and thank you to all the people that stuck around until the end! This isn't my most popular fic, it's not lemons or Blue monday. It's not an easy or particularly joyous read, so I'm glad that you decided to read the whole thing, im glad that you were patient throughout my 4000000 years of not updating. Sorry about that. 
> 
> Anyways, it was a fun ride, y'all. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment please. I mean, I can't say that I won't update until you comment, because I've written most of it already but like... Yeah. Please Please comment it really inspires more stories like this one! And like the other ones!
> 
> BUY ME A COFFEE! It really helps me keep making content since I do a lot of writing at Panera! http://ko-fi.com/G2G0DRHY


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